Dear Members,
It is indeed an honour and a privilege to be able to serve the society of which I’ve been an active member for over 30 years. Ours has always been a well-knit and cohesive group of clinicians, pathologists, paediatricians and scientists from all across the country and I am proud to say we share a warm camaraderie not seen in many societies
Advances in Information, technology and molecular sciences have yielded insights into the origin of human diseases leading to development of path breaking treatments. Nowhere are these changes more prominent than in the field of hematology, which serves as a paradigm for bridging the gap between the laboratory and patient care.
Hematology is a fairly young entrant in the arena of medical super-specialties and has finally come of age in our country too. It has gained recognition as a sub-specialty and has become one of the most sought after streams for super-specialization.
The ISHBT was founded in 1959 and now has about 1980 life members. It is the only comprehensive society of clinical and laboratory Haematology and Haemato-oncology in India.
The past year has seen a flurry of activity under the leadership of the President, Dr. H.P. Pati and our dynamic EC. Extensive work has been done to amend the constitution of ISHBT by the constitution review committee (CRC) helmed by Dr. AK Tripathi and supported by Dr. TK Dolai. Inputs were taken from members which have been incorporated in the amended constitution. Electronic voting has been proposed in the amendment. This has been a long pending issue which will be sorted out to the satisfaction of all members.
The Indian College of Hematologists(ICH) has been constituted with Dr R.K. Jena as the secretary, Dr. T. Singh as the Dean & Dr. PK Sasidharan as Associate Dean. Many CMEs have been carried out across the country under the ICH banner. Importantly, ICH has formulated guidelines for Sickle cell disease jointly with ICMR and is in the process of drawing up many more. On the journal front, work has increase appreciably in the past few years.
Successful meetings were held with executive office bearers of ASH and EHA to discuss our collaboration with them. It is tentatively decided to hold HOPE ASIA 2023, an initiative of EHA-ISHBT in Delhi in August 2023 with Dr. M. Mahapatra as organizing secretary and two EHA tutorial 2024, in Chennai and Hyderabad.
The website of ISHBT has also been updated after recruiting a new website manager. Dr Maitreyee Bhattacharyya has consented to take responsibility of website management and guiding the changes to be made. The ISHBT Master Class, an academic initiative was started om 9th March 2022. As secretary of ISHBT, Dr. Maitreyee set the ball rolling and this event has proved a great success. She has been requested her to continue the work.
To conclude, ISHBT is built on a strong foundation and has a robust constitution. Every year eminent members are elected to the EC which is a democratic body upholding the values of the society and working for its wellbeing.
I sincerely appeal to all members to work together to strengthen the society and take it to greater heights!
With best wishes for a healthy and happy new year
