Respected teachers, seniors and my dear friends,
Thank you so much everyone for electing me for this post last year.
The tagline for this year is “Vision with a perspective”
म्हणजेच दृष्टिकोन
We as Poona Ophthalmolological Society, have come a long way and I have actually seen it since my childhood. We have had and are having excellent members, who have worked selflessly for the betterment of this association.
All the presidents in the past have done a wonderful job. I’ll try my best to live up to your expectations this coming year.
As I said, this year I was thinking what different can we do. So here I’ll just take you through the future of 2026-27. Vision with a perspective, here I mean we will look at things in a different way.
- As a part of delegate kits that we give in conference, we will be procuring them from Anandvan, where treated leprosy patients and other specially abled people make them.
- We will help someone donate some amount to needy people or a charitable trust.
- As gifts to speakers in CME, we will not give mementos or flowers. We will give them bags which are painted by specially abled or mentally challenged people
As this term starts with a wonderful overseas Japan trip, for which 37 people have registered and are coming, this shows how enthusiastic we POS members are.
Along with all other CME’s we will be having 2 flagship programmes
- 5-6 Dec. 2026. A silent conference (POS Spectrum 2026). One hall for 3 screens. Earphones for all, channel changer, and we are ready to go. See on one screen and listen to another screen presentation, that’s the choice you can make. If you remove the earphones, there is pin drop silence in the hall. In this scenario you can ask questions to your choice screen speaker from the relevant mic provided. For those who haven’t attended Keracon, it is definitely going to be wonderful experience. And of course professor Harminder Singh Dua is and will be the main attraction. We will have breakfast courses for doctors on one day, breakfast courses for PGS on another day.
- Eye donation awareness program. 30 th August 2026. Here we are again planning something different. Last to last year we had conducted a mega eye donation awareness program where we showcased some blind singers, rendering some phenomenal songs, some artists making art specifically for blind people, and also released a short film on Eye donation awareness. This year we are arranging a beautiful “Geet Ramayan” program, along with Dr bhakti Datar who most of you know is an accomplished professional singer, we will be having two of our blind colleagues singing along with her. This program will be ticketed, and the amount collected from the tickets would be donated to a charitable trust. It will be probably for the first time, that the blind people, rather than accepting a donation, will be donating themselves for the betterment of society. POS will help this thing happen. Apart from this if the BOT’s agree, we from POS also can make some contribution for the same. I have discussed this with the chartered accountants and they are ok with it.
- As far as scientific programs are concerned, we have Dr Virendra Sangwan coming on 17th May 2026 this program will be in the DMH., where he will talk on the latest technology of liquid cornea. Scientific treat for all. Somashiela Murthy will be accompany him for ocular surface and immunology.
- Then Col Sharma has a greed to host a PG 3D surgical hands on simulation program in AFMC. Dr Prasanna who come last month for AI CME as agreed to get that simulator model here for the PGS and doctors as well. Apart from this routine PG activity and DY Patil is also on the cards.
- And then of course we have retina and pediatric CME Ketan and Dr Nishita will look into it.
- After wonderful episodes of POS radio, this year we will be delivering one podcast every month. From our Facebook page. These podcast will cover all the topics, FAQ’s of general public, addressed by our various specialists. Mr Jayant Sahasrabuddhe, has generously agreed to do this for us free of cost.
- Apart from that of course sports and cultural we can’t miss out on that. One trek, and as many people requested me for a jungle safari so maybe that also we can plan.
So this is it. Looking forward for the same figure and enthusiasm as has been for so many years from all of you. We do have an excellent managing committee team. We are open to any new ideas if anyone has we can implement them..
Thank you
Dr. Sameer Datar,
Hon. President, 2026-27