Dear Members,

It is indeed a proud privilege for me today to stand before you as the President of IFUMB. I thank you all for entrusting me to this prestigious post and I assure you that I’ll not let you down, I’ll try hard to come upto you expectation.

Ladies & gentlemen, I have stood before you many a times in the past in various places and position but believe me that this moment, this day, this place, this august gathering I’ll always cherish for the rest of my life. It is indeed an honour to address this 18th Annual Congress of Indian Federation of Ultrasound in Medical & Biology which is in true a sense a secular organization academically. It is a multidisciplinary amalgamation of Physicians, Surgeons, Obstetrician, Gynecologist, Cardiologist, Ophthalmologists, Endocrinologists, Orthopaedicians, Radiologists, Sonologists & Gen. Practitioners, all gathering under one roof with one simple aim - upliftment of this unique modality called ULTRASOUND, where sound creates images.

My dear friends this unique organization was born to Dr. C.V Vanjani, Dr. K.D. Shah, Dr. C.V. Shah, Dr. K.G. Nair, Dr. Suman Daftary, Dr. R.K. Pai, Dr. Rohini Merchant & Dr. M.Y. Rawal in 1978 and was named as Indian Society of Medical Ultrasound. I Salute these stalwarts. The academic wing of the society was formed in 1993 in the name of Indian College of Medical Ultrasound.

The Scenerio has changed altogether in these 30 years, each & every clinician now requires Ultrasound in one or the other way. It is now taking the role an office diagnostic tool and sooner than later would be like an stethoscope, a trade mark of a clinician worldwide. Here I stress upon the fact and I am sure that you’ll all agree that organization such as IFUMB, FOGSI, IRIA, Cardiology Association etc. should shoulder the responsibility of teaching the basics, the fineries, the intricacies and the ultrasound-manners to their members in respected fields. Needless to say that IFUMB being a multispeciality organization has a stronger role to play. The academic wing of IFUMB is ICMU and hence I’ll request the dean of ICMU to draw a plan through which we can increase our academic activities at grass-root levels viz. the city chapters. The zonal members of ICMU should chalk out and review the activities done & desired every 3 or 4 months. These zonal activities should be reviewed by the Dean & the Vice-deans regularly. I am quite sure that this would increase the activities far and wide, not only in certain cities.

Ladies & gentlemen, when any society comes into existence it always begins with a very few members and the feelings of the founder patrons can be nicely described with these two lines of Mazroo Sultanpuri :

Mai to akela hi chala the Zanibae-Manzil,
Magar log saath aate gae, aur carvan banta gaya.

Presently we have 1869 members on our rolls, though it is not a depressive figure but we can effectively try to increase it and here I request all my fellow members to make atleast one new member each during this year. If done, we would easily double our present strength.

My fellow members, PNDT is an important national act and we have to honour it accordingly but there are lot of issues within it which needs to be ironed-out, so that it becomes easier to follow which would definitely increase its compliance. I strongly feel that IFUMB should liason with PNDT Dept. in Delhi to point out those practical difficulties and if possible to simplify the requested paper work and process of registration.

We should also try to get the IFUMB Ultrasound Course recognized for PNDT registrations all over India. This would help check unnecessary confusion and harresment of the doctors during registration.

I also advocate formation of a legal and grievance cell of IFUMB where the members can register their problems various sort e.g. legal suits, machine company problems, registration problems and others which can be studied by a panel of experts & remedied accordingly. This would increase the confidence & respect of the members in this society.

In the present time Internet is a very effective & inexpensive form of communication. It should be effectively used by our society for day-to-day inter communication, circulars updates, events etc. We already have our own website www.ifumb.in and it is being nicely managed by Dr. Chander Lulla. We should try to make it more informative by completing its construction quickly and then updating it regularly. A news-letters should be uploaded every month on our website which can provide news, forthcoming events, directory of members, and other information.

Nearly all the medical fraternity now have an e-mail id, if somebody still does not have one they should try to get it which the help of their children or grand-children. E-mail can be put into regular use to send circulars and other information to all the members so that the communication becomes fast, regular and inexpensive.

Our quarterly Ultrasound Journal is facing certain publishing problems. The journal could not be in better hands, Dr. Narendra Malhotra as Chief Editor and Dr. Mukund Joshi, Dr. P.K. Srivastava, Dr. C.V. Vanjani and Dr. P.C. Manoria as co-editors are trying hard to overcome these problems. Well shall seriously help them sort out the underlying problems. I have a feeling that trying to publish a web based E-journal on the internet with the help of good web designer, would be logical as it would considerably cut the publishing cost and hence the dependency on various agencies for funds.

I strongly feel that we should have our text book on ultrasound by IFUMB & ICMU. I plan to take up this matter our Dean and Editors.

It is good that we have started doing something about ‘Our Constitution’ which after reviewing, should be made more elaborate, transparent and strong. I assure you, friends that before my tenure ends I would have done lot of leg-work on this issue.

Triennial Conference of Asian Federation for Societies of Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (AFSUMB) is just round the corner and that we are hosting it in New Delhi, in November 2010, is something to be proud about. Let us all try to make it a grand success.

I once again thank you all for entrusting me to serve you as President of IFUMB & I assure you all that I’ll keep no stone unturned to deliver the goods. I wish you all a very pleasant stay in this heavenly set-up of Goa but I know that celebrations for me should be short lived because there is lot to be done in this one year. The dynamism of my predecessor Dr. Ahuja has made things more difficult for me because it would not be easy to match his pace. I understand that this is not going to be an easy journey but when I see the doyens, stalwarts, gurus, friends, my wife Shashi and my family around me I feel confident that with their help and advice l’ll aim for the moon, even if I miss I’ll atleast be amongst the stars.

I would like to seek the support of all our worthy members of IFUMB in every sphere during my tenure to increase the bondage of mutual understanding, cooperation & knowledge-sharing within our ultrasound fraternity. Your recommendations and suggestions are always welcome it is very true my friends that “A journey of thousand miles begins with one step” so let us together start with that first step.

Long lives INDIA long live IFUMB. Jai Hind.

DR. PRADEEP K. GUPTA
PRESIDENT, IFUMB