Published on: February 18, 2011

Generally, there was euphoria in the air during the annual conference of Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPV) at Lucknow. The good feeling was about the recent decision by the Medical Council of India to start post-graduate (MD) course in Palliative Medicine. During informal and formal meetings, IAPC, under the leadership of its president Dr Nagesh Simha and its secretary Dr Anil Paleri decided to proceed with a curriculum development so as to be ready to submit it to the MCI as and when necessary.

The theme of the conference was “Networking in Palliative Care”. The sessions by Mr Gopinath Parayil, stimulating all participants to make use of modern IT technology to improve networking was one of the highlights of the meeting. The participation by India Government’s Revenue department (represented by its Director of Narcotics Sri Rajesh Ranjan Srivastava was another. Yet another was the powerful presence of JivDaya Foundation (JDF) which now supports many palliative care centers by capacity building.

Over the next weeks in our blog and in our next issue of newsletter, we shall continue to provide you with more information on these developments.

We congratulate Mr Piyush Gupta of Cancer Aid Society and his team on the success of the conference.