Dr. K. Sridhar
President

Dear Friends,

This time I am sharing with you my views on the organisation of our Association. The general body and executive meet only once a year to discuss and pass resolutions. Actual available time to give shape to any proposal and execute them is limited. Therefore, we can possibly make better use of the Newsletter to air our views.

The President should consider himself elected to the executive for 3 years rather than consider it as a one-year post of Presidency. There must be an opportunity for the President- elect to express his plan at the beginning of his tenure and to start working on it in the first year itself. Second year is going to be the year of conference, and he can express how much he has progressed in his task during his address. In the third year he should present his completed work to the Executive. Each President can take up at least one issue and try to address it in this three-year period.

I took up some issues on my own without a specific mandate. Our training institutes are getting less and less of patients, especially in basic Cong. anomalies. Other specialities are moving in to share the depleted clinical material, and over the years our students if not trained well in basic surgeries, will lose confidence in performing them. I thought we must sensitise the government and public. As a model it will be easier for me to work in Tamil Nadu and I had sent a proposal to Tamil Nadu Government, which has been accepted in principle. Three different Proforma are being made, and a survey on existing cong. anomalies will be taken up, covering Cleft, Craniofacial, Hand and other problems. Further the children, born after the commencement of Survey, should have the anomaly registered in their birth records. Once the anomalies are surveyed (expected time 6 months) we can take necessary steps to see the anomalies are corrected at Institutions recognized by the Government. This will come into effect as Plan II. Hope I will be able to throw more light on it during my address in Ooty, with a final result in Jaipur.

I am also trying to fix up appointments with the Directors of major Insurance Companies to focus on our problems. I will be happy if you can send me your views. The third task is to get the government declare cleft palate with speech problems as Physically Handicapped. Hope with your wishes, I will be successful in these endeavours.

Plastic Surgeons of Tamil Nadu are working together as a single unit to make APSICON2003 a memorable one for all of you. Welcome to Ooty

Yours truly,
Dr. K. Sridhar