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Dear friends,
At the outset I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all members
of MOA, executive committee members and oraganisers of MOACON 2009 for
providing excellent cooperation to me throughout this year.
Last year, MOA executive committee had put forth certain tasks, and I
can proudly state that we have been able to reach to our goals.
We have increased our membership by 127 new members in last one year and
total strength our organisation has crossed figure of 1000.
Dr Rajendra Abhyankar and myself have visited most of the districts of
Maharashtra to meet the district associations. We have helped local
surgeons to form and register associations where they were non-existent
and have affiliated them to MOA.
Response from our colleagues has been very encouraging.
Regional conferences were held at various regions. They were held at
Nanded, Solapur, Kolhapur and Nagpur. They have been very useful as they
provided a platform for the local talent.
Grievance cell has been formed and has been very active since its
inception. It is getting good momentum because of prompt and effective
communication by Dr Shivashankar. We were successful in solving problem
of one of our colleague with a multinational company.
The journal editor and my friend Dr Ajit Phadke with help of Dr Deepak
Sahasrabuddhe has presented regular publication of top quality MOA
journals.
Dr Nitin Deshpande has taken full interest and has done all the leg work
to launch MOA website. He has been proactive to update it with every
detail about MOA and is working hard to make it self sufficient.
Dr Vilas Jog, Dr Dileep Patwardhan and Dr Vijay Kakatkar; our seniors,
have guided us throughout the year and nearly all the executive members
have contributed to the working of MOA.
Last year we had included regional representatives in the executive body
of MOA. The idea was to have representation from all corners of
Maharashtra. But unfortunately because of lack of enthusiasm from our
colleagues, this idea has not worked. I hope, next year the new regional
representatives will take more interest in the working of
MOA.
Taking this point further, I wish to make a statement here, It will be
better for the organisation, that only those of our members, who can
take out some time from their routine work and can contribute to the
organisation, contest for the post in the executive body, and we the
voters prefer and elect the right persons. Working ability and readiness
to work should be the electoral merit.
In all the activities and aspects of MOA, there was one person working
actively throughout the year and contributing his best all the time, my
friend, the honorary secretary of MOA, Dr Rajendra Abhyankar. His
unfailing enthusiasm, his approach, seemingly strict at times but
practical one, was just unmatched. I shall sum up by
saying that I consider myself very fortunate to have him as the
secretary.
At Mahabaleshwar during our Silver jubilee conference, I had put forth
my thoughts regarding arrangements, contewnts and form of MOACON. I had
appealed for comments, criticism and views from all. I am happy to say I
received many constructive suggestions from our senior members. We are
going to form a committee to consider
all these inputs and come out with an improved format of MOACON.
I am mentioning some of the points to stimulate your thoughts. Please
communicate your inputs to this committee, so that all facets of the
conference can be improved upon.
Number of halls in the conference :- Some feel there should be only one
hall like WIROC, so that only the best material will be presented.
Others feel, that we should accommodate as many free papers as possible,
so as to encourage the junior presenters, offer them a platform to
present, get courage and a chance to improve upon. So they feel even 3
halls may be kept. Some say, hall B is often like,” ?????? ?????? ?????”
Where such topics are arranged which do not attract any crowd.
How much space should be given to the faculties from other specialties
like rheumatology, radiology etc? Some feel we are giving more and more
room to operative treatment of fractures; and neglecting topics like
osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, tumours etc.
Some insist lot of time should be given to discussion, but others
express their concern, that if the chairman is not firm enough; then the
discussion becomes lengthy and irrelevant.
Few opined that the venue of the conference should not be a hill station
or tourist spot, and the venue need not be in a five star hotel by
necessity. Some people object to the sponsored lectures, they feel we
should decide what we want to listen to, and not a pharma company, who
for its advertisement, wishes to impose the topic and the speaker on us.
So friends, there are very diverse issues, different opinions, dogmatic
views and some practical problems to consider. We have to come to a
conclusion which is digestible to most of us. And hence we must come
forward and express our frank opinions.
Let us come together discuss and decide so that we can have more
meaningful and useful activities of our beloved association.
Dr C N Kulkarni
President, Maharashtra Orthopaedic Association. |
