The Rotary Club of Pondicherry Midtown & Bordeaux, France donated a Mammography Unit to JIPMER under the exchange program. This was inaugurated by Thiru. A. Raja, Hon’ble Minister of state for Health & Family Welfare, Government of India on Thursday the 2nd January, 2003 in the august presence of Thiru. N. Rangaswamy, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Pondicherry and Shri. C.P. Tirunavakarasu, M.P. Rajya Sabha. Rotarian Professor Sengaravelou, Assistant District Governor of Rotary Club of Bordeaux South, France spoke at length about the Rotary Exchange programme. Rotarians L. Balachandran, part District Governor and Professor K. Banerjee, past President of Rotary Midtown also spoke at length on the relevance of the exchange program. Rotarians George K. Mani, past President and S.K. Goneran, Secretary of Rotary Club of Pondicherry Midtown were also present as the occasion.

The Workshop on Nursing Care in Emergency was held on 20.1.03 & 21.1.2003 at JIPMER. 35 participants from Govt. Head Quarters Hospital, Cuddalore, Thiruvannamali, Villupuram, General and Maternity hospital, Pondicherry and JIPMER participated. They were at the capacities of Staff Nurse and Nursing Sisters.

The inauguration was held on 20.1.2003 at 10 AM. Dr. R. Sambasiva Rao, Director, inaugurated the workshop. He, in his address, pointed out that nurses have to update their knowledge in par with the advancement in science and technology. However, on no account should the sophisticated equipments and devices replace the tender loving care by the nurses. Dr. S. Badrinath, Medical Superintendent presided over the function. Mrs. Gnanapushpam D., CNO & Course Co-ordinator welcomed the gathering.

Important topics like care of patients with myocardial infarction (Prof. J. Balachander), organophosphorous poisoning (Prof. R.P. Swaminathan), Diabetic Ketoacidosis (Dr. D.K.S. Subrhamanyam), Paediatric emergencies (Prof. S. Srinivasan), Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Defibrillation, Oxygen therapy and Ventilator care (Prof. Kundra), Care of patients on ventilator (Mr. Ramesh R.S.), Arrhythmias (Prof. K.R. Sethuraman), Neonatal resuscitation (Prof. Vishnu Bhat). Head injury care and management (Dr. Kadambari) were covered.

The valedictory function was held on 21.1.2003. Dr. K.R. Sethuraman, HOD, Medical Education delivered the valedictory address. He pointed out that the knowledge gained by workshops should be transferred to patient care. Nurses should have the spirit of service in order to deliver the holistic care to the patients.

Mr. R.S. Ramesh proposed vote of thanks. Pre-test and post-test were conducted. Certificates were distributed to the participants.

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The Department of Medical Education conducted the 11th Annual Interns Orientation Programme for the January 2003 batch from 28th to 30th January 2003. The workshop was inaugurated by Dr. S. Badrinath, Medical Superintendent. 43 interns took active part in the deliberation. The core group consisting of the following faculty facilitated the proceedings of the three-day workshop:

1. Dr. K.R. Sethuraman, Prof. & H/D of Medical Education

2. Dr. Abdoul Hamide, Prof. of Medicine

3. Dr. S. Jagdish, Prof. of Surgery

4. Dr. S. Mahadevan, Prof. of Paediatrics

5. Dr. A. Bhupathi, Prof. of Obst & Gynaecology

6. Dr. S. Soundararghavan, Prof. of Obst. & Gynaecology

7. Dr. C.H. Shashindran, Prof. & Head of Pharmacology

8. Dr. B. Gitanjali, Prof. of Pharmacology

9. Dr. S.B. Roti, Prof. of PSM

10. Dr. S. Jayanthi, Prof. of Pathology

11. Dr. Reba Kanungo, Prof. of Microbiology

12. Dr. B.C. Koner, Asst. Prof. of Biochemistry

On day 1, Medical Ethics was chaired by Dr. K.R. Sethuraman and Mrs. Vany Adithan, Sr. Lecturer, Dr. Ambethkar Govt. Law College, Pondicherry. In the afternoon, a video based session on "Doctor-patients communication" was chaired by Dr. K.R. Sethuraman and Mrs. Uma Chandrasekar, Sr. Lecturer in School of Management, Pondicherry University. Day 2 opened with an important session on "Written Communication and Medical Records" by Dr. S. Jagdish and Dr. S. Soundararaghavan. This was followed by the session on "Rational use of diagnostics" chaired by Dr. Reba Kanungo. Dr. Abdoul Hamide chaired the last session of the day on "Rational use of drug therapy". This session continued into day 3 also. This was followed by a session on "Essential drugs concept and personal drugs concept" chaired by Dr. S. Mahadevan and Dr. S.B. Roti. The last session was on "Medical Promotion" conducted by Dr. B. Gitanjali. The Alumni Association of JIPMER felicitated the Interns batch and hosted a high tea along with the valedictory function chaired by Prof. A.K. Das, Dean.

Dr. C.L. Sridhar, a JIPMER Alumnus (Batch of 1966) and an interventionalist visited JIPMER for 3 days from 25th to 27th January, 2003. On 25th, he conducted an image-analysis seminar for postgraduates of the Department of Medicine, Surgery, Radio-diagnosis, etc. Some of our faculty members also participated in the two hour highly interactive seminar. On 27th, Dr. Sridhar took part in interventional procedures at the Cath-Lab of Department of Cardiology. He made a gift of several catheters and consumables for the poor patients of our hospital.

JIPMER staff and students contributed to the national cause as indicated below for:

1. Communal Harmony day : Rs. 1003.00

2. Armed forces Flag day : Rs.  6860.45

The amount has been sent to the Directors of the respective organizations – National Foundation for communal Harmony, Lok Nayak Bhavan, New Delhi-3 and Dept. of Sainik Welfare, Pondicherry.

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1. The annual faculty oration of the JIPMER scientific society for the year 2002-2003 was held on 27th January 2003 at 3.15 PM in Pasteur Theater. Dr. S. Robinson Smile, Professor of Surgery, JIPMER delivered the Oration on "Changing trends in Surgery".

Dr. N. Ananthakrishnan, Director-Professor and Head, Department of Surgery introduced Dr. Smile. Dr. Madanmohan, President JSS, presented a medallion and a scroll to Dr. Smile on behalf of the JSS. Dr. R. Sambasiva Rao, Director presented a memento to the guest orator on the occasion. Dr. Vikram Kate, Secretary JSS proposed a vote of thanks.

2. The monthly meeting of the JIPMER Scientific Society was held on 23rd January 2003, Thursday at 3.15 in Pasteur Theatre.

The following papers were presented:

• Tilt table testing in the evaluation of presyncope and syncope: A case-series report. E.S. Prakash, Madanmohan, Kaviraja Udupa, Sunil K. Narayan, K.R. Sethuraman, S. Srinivasan, Ajit Sahai. Department of Physiology, Neurology, Medicine, Pediatrics and preventive and Social Medicine.

• Current status of open-heart surgery at JIPMER- an introspection. Nachiappan M, Subba Rao KSVK. Department of Cardio Thoracic and Vascular Surgery.

• Clinical profile of molluscum contagiosum in children versus adults. Laxmisha C, Devinder M. Thappa, TJ Jaisankar. Department of Dermatology and STD.

• Multiple pulmonary arterio-venous malformations – an uncommon clinical entity. Pajanivel R, S. Vinod Kumar, G. Subramanium, J. Balachander, S. Elangovan, Bhuvaneswari. Department of TB & Chest diseases, Cardiology and Radiodiagnosis.

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The 31st National Conference of Indian Association of Dermatologists, Venereologist and Leprologists was held at Science City, Kolkata, from 29th January 2003 to 2nd February 2003.

Dr. D.M. Thappa, Professor and Head and Dr. T.J. Jaisankar, Associate Professor were the Faculty Members who participated in the above conference.

Dr. D.M. Thappa, was awarded the Ambady Oration and he delivered the oration on "Spectrum of cutaneous disorders in HIV infected patients". He also chaired two scientific sessions of free papers.

Dr. T.J. Jaisankar, Associate Professor participated in the conference as joint secretary of National Executive of IADVL.

The following papers were presented in the Conference from JIPMER as Oral presentations:

The following papers were presented as Posters:

Dr. Laxmisha Chandrashekhar, Junior Resident of this Department was awarded Fellowship on "Dermato Pathology" at Mumbai under Dr. Udaya Khopkar. He also got 3rd prize in a Quiz Programme for postgraduate DERMAQUEST.

On 9th January 2003, a Tele-education programme was arranged between the Department of Medical Education, JIPMER, Pondicherry and the Department of Curriculum Development, Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University. The Master Trainers assembled at the University Hall, Chennai and conducted various sessions on Educational science viz. Systems Approach, T.L. Media, OSCE, OSPE and Ethics for Educationers. This was monitored live at JIPMER by Dr. K.R. Sethuraman, Head, Dept. of Medical Education, Dr. K.A. Narayan, Head, Dept. of P & SM and Dr. Mariette D’Souza, Professor of Skin & STD. The Monitors gave appropriate feedback to them and suggested improvement in various sessions.

Encouraged by the effectiveness of this method of tele-medicine, the Department of Medical Education is now willing to help other departments to organize similar tele-meetings.

2. Dr. Deendayal Dinakarpandian, a JIPMER Alumnus, delivered a lecture on "Bioinformatics – an overview" at the Department of Medical Education on January 6th, 2003. The talk and slide-show were appreciated by the medical faculty and postgraduate students of this institute.

3. Dr. N. Ananthakrishnan, Director-Professor and Head of the Department of Surgery and Dr. K.R. Sethuraman, were nominated as resource persons for the M.C.I. sponsored C.M.E. on "New MCI curriculum and Information Technology" organized by the Medical Education Cell of Andhra Medical College, Vishakapatnam on 19.1.2003. Dr. Ananthakrishnan facilitated a session on "M.C.I. – 1997 regulations – An appraisal" Dr. Sethuraman demonstrated the use of Information Technology in Education and also spoke on "7 strategies to empower teaching – learning". About 140 participants took active part in the deliberations. They also took part in a pre-C.M.E. workshop on 18th Junary, 2003 on "P.G. Dissertation & Medical Ethics" and a post C.M.E. Panel discussion held on 20th on "Specialisation in Medicine – Quo Vadis?"

Three faculty members from the Department of Medicine, JIPMER, viz., Dr. Ashok Kumar Das, Dean, and Head of Medicine, Dr. T.K. Dutta, Professor of Medicine and Dr. Aparna Agrawal, Professor of Medicine attended the 58th Annual Conference of the Association of Physicians of India held from 11th to 15th January, 2003 at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

Dr. Ashok Kumar Das, as immediate member of Governing Body, past president of API and member, scientific committee, delivered the following talks:

He also moderated the Diabetology case presentation.

Dr. T.K. Dutta, was the moderator for the infectious disease clinicopathological conference in APICON. The case was presented by Dr. Aparna Agrawal. It generated a good discussion. Dr. Aparna Agrawal also presented a poster: ‘Mosaic pattern: Is it the sine quo non of portal hypertensive gastropathy?’.

Dr. S.C. Parija, Professor and Head, Department of Microbiology attended the Second Annual conference of Indian Association of Applied microbiologists held from 21st December, 2002 at the department of Microbiology, Presidency College, Chennai. Prof. Parija, delivered an invited lecture on ‘Diagnostic kits in parasitic diseases: At what cost?’.

Dr. Ajit Sahai, Professor of Biometrics, attended the 47th National Conference of Indian Public Health Association (IPHA) along with Maharastra state level conference of IPHA and IAPSM and the pre-conference workshop on "Meta-Analysis" organized by IPHA Vidarbha branch between 16th and 19th January 2003 at Nagpur. Prof. Sahai, as President of IPHA-state-branch-Pondicherry and member to IPHA central council presented the annual report to earn the recognition for the branch office (2003-04) and also the IPHA life-membership "MIPHA" scrolls for all the members from JIPMER. He presented a paper entitled "An Audit of Essential Physical Facilities and Services at the Anganwadi Centers (AWC) of ICDS in Pondicherry", He also chaired a session and acted as judge in poster presentations.

Prof. Ajit Sahai was invited to attend the silver jubilee celebrations of Institute for Research in Medical Statistics (IRMS), ICMR, and XX Annual Conference of Indian Society for Medical Statistics (ISMS) organized by IRMS and Department of Biostatistics, All India Institute of Medial Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, between 19th and 22nd December, 2002. Prof. Sahai acted as a resource-faculty in pre-conference workshop/CME on Biostatistics "Statistical Methods in Epidemiology" held on 17th and 18th December 2002. He also chaired sessions on Epidemiological methods in Communicable Diseases and in other non-communicable Diseases and presented papers – entitled "Spiritual Health Measurement – a Challenge to Biostatisticians" and "Teaching a Foundation Course on Research Methodology and Biostatistics to Dental Postgraduates – a new Experience".

1. Dr. C. Adithan, Professor of Pharmacology attended the "International conference on Chest Diseases and Allied Sciences" organized by Vallabhhai Patel Chest Institute, University of Delhi at New Delhi from 12th – 14th January, 2003 as an invited faculty member. He delivered a guest lecture on "Pharmacogenomics: Is there any role in the treatment of chest diseases?".

2. Mr. A.T. Naveen, Ms. J. Rosemary, both Ph.D. students and Ms. N. Padmaja, research scholar of Pharmacogenomics Lab, Department of Pharmacology, JIPMER attended the first winter symposium on "Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine" conducted by CMC, Vellore on 30th -31st of January 2003.

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The special camp of the JIPMER Mobile Clinic was held on 4.1.2003 at Embalam, situated 19 Kms away from JIPMER, Pondicherry. 867 patients attended the camp. 10 doctors from Medicine, Paediatrics, E.N.T., General Surgery and Ophthalmology gave specialist care in the camp.

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Dr. Pankaj Kundra as Professor of Anesthesiology w.e.f. 5.4.2002.

Dr. Debdatte Basu as Professor Pathology w.e.f. 5.4.2002.

Dr. Prakash Chand as Professor of Anatomy w.e.f. 5.4.2002.

Dr. Niranjan Biswa as Professor of Paediatrices w.e.f. 5.4.2002.

Dr. R. Anil Kumar as Professor of Cardiology w.e.f. 24.8.2002.

Dr. Dasari Papa as Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology w.e.f. 1.10.2002.

RETIREMENTS

The following staff have retired from the institute.

Shri. S. Venakatachalam, Medical Records Supervisor, 31.1.2003

Shri. K. Marimuthu, Peon, 31.1.2003

Shri. N. Ranganathachetty, Lib. Attd., 31.1.2003

Shri. D. Ramuammal, Lab, Att., 31.1.3002

Shri. T.K. Munisamy, N. Attd., 31.1.2003

Shri. N. Raghavan, Attd (CSSD), 31.1.2003

Shri. R. Rajendran, Security Guard, 3.9.2002

The staff and students convey their gratitude for the contribution made them to the development of JIPMER. We wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

 

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