Indian Chest Society has had many changes which have only helped the society move forward. I want to focus on certain areas during my tenure as Secretary, ICS. The first area of focus would be in trying to support young pulmonologists in the country. We will provide them support to choose a career path and get support through platforms to become faculty at various local, regional and national meetings. We will provide them opportunities to do fellowships and courses to pursue sub-speciality interests which would further their career. They would also want to learn and participate in research which is representative of their local area and also in the country. The Indian Chest Society has succeeded in trying to foster these individual areas. We want to build research activities under the umbrella of ICS to try and get a representative of national data in various disease areas. The process started with the ILD and the Bronchiectasis registry and we hope that the other disease areas can also be focused on.

NAPCON 2023 Delhi provided a platform for our junior faculty. We do multiple webinars, where we also provide a platform to young faculty. Going forward at a state, regional and national level, I promise we would have dedicated participation from these youngsters who will be selected by their State Heads in becoming speakers at various levels. We will arrange for training sessions to help them to learn public speaking and elocution for such forums. There would also be online platforms where they ask questions, put suggestions and we hope to start these platforms under various key opinion leaders for handholding purposes in the not-so-distant future. Academics is an area of focus and it can be fostered by networking. We have networked extensively within the country and with the European Respiratory Society which has furthered education considerably. We have done the Hermes exam in India and plan to continue to do so. We have also started joint fellowship with the ERS which is still in a nascent stage. Going forward we want to collaborate with several other international societies to try and exchange the best practices with them. In doing this, we want to tie-up with countries within Asia, specifically South Asia to build a larger umbrella which would give us representative data for this entire region. We would also like to tie-up with other countries and continents in trying to do collaborative meetings, exchange, ideas and participate in national conferences in respective countries. International collaboration, networking and working together remains one of the important ethos of the Indian Chest Society.

We would also want to work with our paramedical staff and try to support them as a part of our larger respiratory network. The paramedic area has often been ignored in India and we want to provide a platform for the same where they can connect with each other with the support of the medics, where we would support activities of the paramedic staff. This was started in Napcon 23 where we had a paramedic workshop which was tutored by doctors and paramedics and went down very well. We hope to do larger events both on a virtual and a physical platform in supporting training and networking activities within the paramedic arena. Respiratory medicine is undergoing various challenges at the moment. It has been abolished from the undergraduate curriculum which is a cause for concern. Diseases like TB, COVID, COPD, Asthma, Interstitial Lung diseases, Sleep remain very important areas for training undergraduates for our country. Indian Chest Society has taken up a role of Advocacy in trying to build up understanding and there are ongoing discussions with the government in trying to reinstate Respiratory Medicine in the undergraduate curriculum. There are other Advocacy activities like screening sleep studies in heavy goods vehicle drivers to reduce accidents where the ICS has actively participated in and we look forward to engaging in several more. Trying to build up guidelines and protocols is another important area. There are various guidelines which need to be updated & new guidelines need to be formulated. The ICS will work in trying to do the same with full efficiency.

We promise that inclusivity would be the spirit of the Indian Chest Society under our leadership. We will try to make sure that every city, region, state gets themselves represented in the ICS activities. Feel free to give us your suggestions, ideas and I promise each idea would be carefully considered and implemented if possible. We will definitely give you feedback if you write to us and connect with us. We have a very active administrative team who handholds the medical team in trying to do these activities on a joint basis. I look forward to my tenure as Secretary, where we can take the Indian Chest society forward with support from you all. Thanking you.

Sincerely,
Dr. Raja Dhar
Secretary, Indian Chest Society