From the President’s Desk

Dr. Sushma Bhatnagar

Hello Friends,

On behalf of the IAPC, I am delighted to invite applications for the ‘IAPC’s Gold Medal for Nurses 2024’, an initiative to encourage nurses in palliative care to further develop their skills and knowledge, and achieve excellence in the field. The winner will receive a cash prize of Rs. 25,000/- (Twenty-five thousand rupees only), a citation, and a medal. This winner will be selected through a two-step national examination. The first step is a free online screening examination (100 MCQ’s), which will be accessible from Thursday, 1st August, 2024, to 5 p.m. on Saturday, 31st August, 2024. The top five candidates from this screening will be invited to participate in the second step, an in-person examination on Monday, 28th October, 2024. We encourage our nurses to participate in this examination and compete for the ‘IAPC’s Gold Medal for Nurses 2024’. Please click here for further details regarding the guidelines, selection process, and timelines.

The August 2024 Infographic focuses on the concept of ‘Understanding Grief in Palliative Care’. Please don’t hesitate to share this free-to-use infographic within your networks. Please click here to access the infographics published till date.

I would like to also remind you to submit your entries for the IAPC’s initiative ‘A Photo Journey – Looking Through the Prism of Palliative Care,’ in commemoration of World Photography Day. All submissions adhering to the guidelines will be published on the IAPC’s website on Monday, 19th August, 2024. Don’t forget that the last date to submit entries is 5 p.m. on Tuesday, 6th August, 2024.

The IAPC celebrated the National Doctors Day with a campaign ‘Celebrating Compassion: The IAPC’s Celebration of National Doctors’ Day,’ which features impressive, and interesting insights shared by our persistent colleagues during their journey in palliative care. Through this initiative we hope to inspire our colleagues from the palliative care community and also educate those from outside the field to encourage their greater involvement in palliative care.

The organizing secretaries of the upcoming 32nd Annual International Conference of the Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPCON 2025), Dr. Rohit Lahori and Dr. Sunana Gupta, invite registrations for IAPCON 2025, which will be held at the Auditorium of AIIMS Jammu, between Friday, 31st January, 2025, to Sunday, 2nd February, 2025. Dr Anjum Joad (Chair, Scientific Committee, IAPCON 2025) is also inviting abstract submissions and also registrations for a very interesting lineup of pre-conference workshops which are scheduled for Thursday, 30th January, 2025. For further details and to register for IAPCON 2025, please click here.

I am also pleased to share with you all that the ‘Telangana State Chapter of the IAPC’ was inaugurated on Saturday, 29th June, 2024. I am certain that the new chapter led by Dr Gayatri Palat will rise to great heights and ensure the delivery of palliative care at every patient’s doorstep all across Telangana. Further details about this is available in the ‘Announcements and Messages’ section of the newsletter.  

I am also pleased to share that applications are invited for the 6th online batch of the IAPC’s ‘Certificate Course in Palliative Care Pharmacy,’ slated for Saturday, 28th September, 2024, and for the Academy of Palliative Medicine’s (APM) online batch of the ‘Advanced Nursing Skills in Palliative Care.’ The online ‘Part A theory component’ of the IAPC’s ‘Certificate Course in Essentials in Palliative Care’, was also successfully over three weekends in July 2024.

I invite you to visit the ‘Education and Training’ section of this newsletter, to view the course announcements from several other institutions and to read the reports on various Palliative Care Educational programs organised by different organisations in India. My gratitude to each of these centers which work hard to further develop palliative care education across the country.

It is my pride and pleasure to celebrate the awards and achievements of our colleagues and institutions from the field of palliative care. Do head over to the ‘Awards and Recognition’ section of this newsletter to read and join me in celebrating these awards and milestones of our colleagues. My heartfelt congratulations to each of them!

The IAPC also thanks and congratulates the contributors for their support towards this month’s ‘Exclusive Articles’ section. The contributors for this month are:

I leave you with a musical invitation to join us for the August edition of ‘Singing for the Stars’, a joint initiative by the IAPC and the Shankar Mahadevan Academy Nirvana (SMA Nirvana). This initiative aims to present our palliative care community with a series of free virtual evening of harmonies. Please don’t forget to join us for the August multilingual edition of ‘Singing for the Stars’ scheduled for 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 13th August, 2024.

With warm regards,

Dr. Sushma Bhatnagar
President, IAPC