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president's address

Indian Pediatr 2012;49: 265

Continuing With an Academic Feast

Rohit C Agrawal

National President 2012, Indian Academy of Pediatrics

Email: [email protected]


In the pursuit of the pledge, I had made at the swearing in ceremony, my main thrust would be to direct IAP towards Academics – Rationality and Reaching the Unreached and to strive hard to achieve MDG-4. The most precious "Golden Jubilee" outcome would be to reduce child mortality.

To tackle child mortality, neonatal deaths, malnutrition, vaccine preventable diseases and tuberculosis need to be addressed aggressively. Add on to them the issues of Adolescents that need delicate and precise handling. Poor maternal health gets directly translated into the neonatal mortality. It is indeed a matter of shame that though reduced, neonatal mortality rate is still high. When China can reduce its NMR to 15 in a span of 5 years using the neonatal resuscitation program (NRP) strategy, why not India? NRP brought in India in 2009 by IAP has been very successfully disseminated across the country and well taken up by the Govt in the form of Navjat Shishu Suraksha Karyakram. NRP in 2012 is in an improvised mode with the new 6th edition guidelines ready to take off as "Basic NRP" for medical officers and ANMs; and "Advanced NRP" for pediatricians and obstetricians. The landmark achievement of 2012 as far as NRP is concerned is the forging of "IAP – NNF partnership" for a joint execution of art and science of neonatal resuscitation, which will go a long way in the history as vision of both organizations ultimately to save the lives of tiny tots. I must congratulate and thank the NNF leadership for this alliance and must admire with deep appreciation the philanthropic outlook of Mr. Swamy Raote of JnJ.

"PPP – Private Public Partnership" which was forged between the IAP and GOI during Gurgaon PEDICON started bearing fruits too early. Myself and the president elect, Dr. CP Bansal were summoned by the additional secretary of health and family welfare recently on 16th March at Delhi for a meeting and showed her keen interest with full funding on many child health projects with the IAP. Her key focus being adolescent anemia with a slogan "Anemia free pink India".

Recently the health minister at the World Polio Summit declared that WHO has taken out India from Polio endemic region. Indeed it is not only fascinating news but a great national pride and the credit goes to all the missionary organizations, Govt – Non Govt including IAP, who are the crusaders in this noble mission. We are planning to celebrate this achievement under the banner of IAP. It was a proud privilege for the president, and some key opinion leaders from IAP to get invited at the 26th India Expert Advisory Group (IEAG) at Delhi on 15th and 16th March where the issue of Polio Eradication was deliberated at length and many vital consensus recommendation were made by a group of experts from across the globe like: India should not become complacent; to maintain zero polio status is a challenge; trivalent OPV needs to be replaced by bivalent OPV; rounds of NIDs/SNIDs/SIA to be continued; sequential switch from OPV to IPV in post eradication phase; and ensuring and encouraging the production and supply of the vaccines.

Amongst the many educational modules envisaged for the year 2012 under IAP Presidential Action Plan, two very important and interesting modules are getting launched on 25th March at Mumbai and Bangalore. The modules are centred on the theme of Office Practice – Difficult situations in an office setup.

1. "Difficult Adolescent in Office Practice" a comprehensive module with clinical precision being developed by a team of experts from IAP – AHA under the guidance and directions of the chairperson Dr CP Bansal and national convener Dr JS Tuteja. The module will train the pediatricians in dealing with and addressing the difficult issues and scenarios encountered in day to day office practice. Following this launch around 12-15 such workshops will be conducted across the country.

2. To prepare a practicing pediatrician to deal and negotiate with an unforeseen but common emergency encountered in an office setup. "Office Preparedness for Paediatric Emergencies [OPPE]" is a wonderful concept capsulized in a very interesting case based scenario module being developed by a team under the chairmanship of Dr Jagdish Chinappa.

TIPPS – Training in Practical Pediatric Skills, especially for the post graduates is an extensive but very unique module developed by a group of academicians across the country under the coordination of Dr S Sanjay, S Balasubramanian, and Baldev Prajapati is also due to be launched on 22nd April at Hyderabad.

 

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