Respected Immediate past President, Immediate past Secretary, Immediate past Treasurer, Hon. Secretary, Hon. Treasurer, Board of Trustees, Respected Teachers, Senior colleagues and dear friends,

At the outset, let me thank Dr Santosh Bhide for the kind introduction

I feel deeply honored and privileged to hold the post of Hon. President, Poona Ophthalmological Society for the year 2023-24

I thank each and every member for the opportunity and will ensure your faith in me will be upheld,

An organization of highly skilled professionals like ours needs to be run in a professional way.

Although our committee will be in office only for 365 days, these are 365 days of opportunity to steer the association towards a higher goal.

I will highlight some important projects we will initiate this year.

It is a challenge to do research, aside from our practice. Many amongst us have the urge to do research work, because we understand this is the only way to improve as clinicians and thereby help our patients. However, because of many reasons, not many either do research or even present or publish their work.

We have formed a Research Support Group of 5 eminent clinician-researchers from our association- Dr Parikshit Gogate, Dr Sucheta Kulkarni, Dr Aditya Kelkar, Dr Kuldeep Dole and Dr Ramesh Murthy, who will help our members and PG in their research work, with the aim of doing good quality research. Those amongst us who are keen, can take help from this group for any research project. We hope this hand holding system will encourage more amongst us to tread on this challenging, yet fulfilling path. We will shortly circulate a detailed plan for helping our members in doing their research work.

Private practice in today’s era throws up a variety of challenges. Changing govt regulations, the insurance/cashless headaches, the fear of medico-legal sword and managing our finances efficiently and profitably are some to name a few. We have constituted a Practice Support Group which includes 4 senior members Dr Sanjay Patil, Dr Kishore Pahuja, Dr Salim Pathan and Dr Tejaswini Walimbe to help our members guide in issues like these. I am sure with the collective expertise of the 4 senior members we will all benefit in getting the appropriate advice for our practice related queries. We also plan to hold meetings, with the help of this group, to discuss practice related matters.

Our Scientific Committee of experienced subspeciality experts, which includes Dr Devika Joshi, Dr Sameer Datar, Dr Puja Goyal, Dr Roopali Nerlikar, Dr Nishita Beke-Borde,Dr Kuldeep Dole and Dr Ketan Jathar, will help us in deciding the scientific programmes and also the scientific program for SPECTRUM. One More new feature we will start is called POS Journal Express, a newsletter with brief abstracts of important articles of each subspeciality with links to full articles included.

Public awareness on a variety of eye related problems is an important activity every year. Taking one step ahead, we plan to conduct/support eye screening of children from socially disadvantaged classes in primary school and specially abled children in municipal and zilla parishad schools. We all know the importance of early screening and treatment of these children and the timely intervention it has on their whole life. We will seek help from some reputed NGO for this purpose.

A special campaign against misuse of OTC steroid eye drops will be launched, to sensitize the community/society at large and especially the dispensing chemist and druggist.

We have also planned for CME programs and Skill transfer courses throughout the year, by which we will get an opportunity to enhance our clinical skills. Here I request all members and PG to participate in the clinical meetings we will have. The 1st clinical meeting is held along with the Uveitis CME on 9th April.

SPECTRUM 2023 will be held at Sheraton Grand on 16-17th December. We will work towards making this conference worth attending and a great learning experience and also an opportunity for enjoying the fellowship. More than 100 members have already registered so far and I invite you all to be part of the annual scientific gala. With the online registration available, thanks to our PP Dr Sandesh Doshi, it is very quick and easy to register.

I, as Organising Secretary, GlaucoPune, along with LOC comprising of Dr Medha Prabhudesai, as Organising President, Dr Pankaj Bendale as Organising Treasurer, Dr Roopali Nerlikar as Organising Co Chairman, Dr Vidya Chelerkar as Organising Joint Secretary and all GSI members from Pune take this opportunity to invite you all to register for the 32nd Annual Conference of Glaucoma Society of India, to be held for the 1st time in our city from 6-8 Oct, 2023 at Hotel Hyatt Regency. This conference will be a Glaucoma Society of India program. We will get to learn many nuances about glaucoma practice from top national and international experts.

One enduring concern we all share is the impact on the environment. We all are aware of the looming climate change crisis. We intend to promote certain environmentally friendly practices through our programs and also create awareness amongst our members about this very vital issue. I feel this is an absolute need of the hour. We are open to suggestions from members for this purpose.

All work and no play make everybody a dull person

To keep our minds and body refreshed, we also plan to have sports and cultural events, some of which are our annual trek and a 7 days CME cum national trip in the second half.

The destination is novel and I am sure it will attract many members for this excursion.

We will also have a cultural day and the ever-popular cricket match too.

I am sure these activities will provide an excellent opportunity to all members to showcase their talents.

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to all members of MC, co-opted members, members of SC, Advisory committee, and our patrons for agreeing to be part of this year’s committee.

A special thank you to all BoT members, for their continued support.

I especially thank Hon. Secretary Dr Sagar Vardhamane, Hon.Treasurer Dr Pankaj Bendale and Academic program and Conference Coordinator Dr Mukesh Pariyani for accepting these very important responsibilities.

I truly thank my family, my better half Dr Sucharita, our daughter Radhika and my in-laws Vijay and Vilasini Khankari for their support and blessings. I wouldn’t be standing here without this.

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my late parents Rajani and Govind Paranjpe, who gave the right sanskar to lead an honorable and just life.

I also express my pranam to my gurus, some of whom are sitting here, without whose efforts all this would have been impossible.

The slogan for this year is Care for one, Care for all, signifying the importance of taking care of not only that one patient but also of people around us and the environment too.

Before I end, I would like to say a few words about our involvement in any professional medical association. Although this is a voluntary responsibility, it requires a certain commitment in terms of time and effort.

Just as we work towards a professionally successful life, our contribution, if done the right way, will help strengthen our association. Given the multitude, ever increasing challenges our profession faces, it is absolutely essential we strengthen professional medical associations like ours. I urge everyone involved in running the affairs of our association and those interested in doing so in the future, to be sincere in your efforts.

To give an analogy, like the varkari carry palkhi turn by turn, with utmost bhakti, we too are carrying this POS palkhi for this year with utmost sense of responsibility.

I once again sincerely thank each one of you for supporting me and our committee. All the work we do throughout the year will be for the benefit of members of this association and is only possible with your support. Please feel free to send your suggestions on any matter concerning our association, to make it better and more robust.

I congratulate all my predecessors for their stellar contribution in strengthening this association and our committee shall make utmost efforts towards this goal.

Thank you.

Long live Poona Ophthalmological Society.

Dr. Mandar Parajpe