Dear fellow academicians,

A very happy & healthy new year to all of you and your family.

We, new team of office bearers, want to set a dialogue about present scenario in the field of pediatric health care, through this address.

First of all we want to appreciate the IAP WEST DELHI’s  enchanting Legacy:  a vibrant branch since its inception, has set the milestones firmly. We are full of pride for our predecessors for trend-setting conferences like Pediatric Conference of North India (PCNI), now IAP Delhi franchise, National Original Research Convention (NORC) and Skill-o-Thon workshops. Our branch has been identified at national level and we are happy to declare that our Branch would be awarded honor of appreciation in PEDICON 2025 to be held in Hyderabad. 

We applaud the efforts of Dr Dinesh Goel (President, ex officio), Dr Maninder Dhariwal (Secretary ex officio), Dr Rashmi Grover(Finance secretary, ex-officio) and EB members. IAP West Delhi created a glorious history for itself,by completing 12 episodes of Kaam ki baat (monthly meeting), multiple well attended workshops under  SKILLOTHON, Daughters day program with Sweet (Shelter) Home Delhi, multiple physical and zoom CMEs/workshops with subspecialities.Publication of Ped-Connect was another accomplishment under the guidance of Dr Puneet Kumar-Editor. Our OB were able to connect with societies needing attention. “WESTCON” was culmination of all the talent this OB/EB had inside. It was a great academic feast laced with fun (Bollywood tadka) a skit oozing self-satire (Director-Dr Maninder), musical program and programs were adored by the audience. Needless to say, the present team has a great legacy and compulsion to rise upto standards set by our predecessors. 

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Today, at the threshold of 2025, we need to acknowledge that last few years were test of scientific capacity and conjunct efforts of glorious legacy of previous years when pandemic SARS-COV-2 struck and shook the humanity and tested the global scientific capacity and brotherhood to the hilt. We have learned the importance of hand washing, masks, sunlight, fresh air, keeping a distance, healthy diet and traditional medicines. This was time to recruit the people from all walks of life, as the medical care givers. 
During these years vaccinology broke the barriers and mRNA vaccines revealed a fascinating efficiency during the pandemic COVID 19; its unique potential has been appreciated as it has low risk of insertional mutagenesis, comparable potency, low cost, and most importantly, accelerated development cycles. The mRNA vaccine family is set to provide solutions to tackle emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases such as rabies, Zika, and influenza.

 Despite all of this, anemia, worm infestations, diarrhoeal diseases,lower respiratory tract infections are still glaringly on pediatric horizon. Congenital defects including cardiac malformations are not wholesomely addressed in RPWD Act 2016 and despite of IRDA advisory 2019, 2022 , health and life insurance are not accessible by this patient population. We have 5 years left for SDG 2030 and have a great task in hand to ensure healthy humanity.

Dear friends, we believe that the Best DOCTOR Lives inside you.  Ayurveda has proposed to have a life harmonized with the nature. It is established now, that the mammalians circadian pacemaker (placed in paired SCN) effects the multitude of biological processes, including the sleep-wake rhythm or circadian rhythm in physiology and behaviour. The effectiveness and toxicity of many drugs vary depending on dosing time (Chronpharmacology) associated with 24 hr rhythms of circadian clock. These scientific discoveries endorse age old principle of Early to Bed and Early to Rise.  Friends, sleep hygiene is most disrespected core of life. Furthermore, sleep hygiene for a person and breast feeding for a baby are two physiological long-term investments for humanity, yet we are not able to imbibe it in our life. We will talk about them more and more, as we will make progress in this year.

IAP west Delhi branch, vows to perform under the guidance of CIAP and DIAP. We have a  highly accomplished executive  board members, Dr. Prashant Seth, Dr Sharwan Gupta, Dr Rashmi Grover,Dr Rashmi Gandhi, Dr Ripdaman Kaur, Dr. Gagan Malhotra are shouldering specified responsibilities. To enrich the experience of team we have invited  Dr Vishal Vaidya, Dr Vikram Gagneja, Dr Sunil Bhasin, Dr Pankaj Goel, Dr Shweta Gupta, Dr Ram Asre, Dr Neeta Kejriwal as co-opted members.We are thankful that Dr Alok Bhandari (ex officio-President IAP Delhi state),Dr Uttam Pal, Dr Deepak Gautam, Dr Vineet Sehgal, Dr Sandeep Taneja, Dr Gaurav Sethi, Dr Vikas Taneja and Dr Peeyush Khanna for accepting to become our advisors.

With this strong team IAP West Delhi has many interesting programs to share with you.

1. Child health Literacy: We are going to work on raising health literacy amongst the children and recruiting them as ‘Child Health  Brigade’, exploiting their  stamina, inquisitiveness and understanding of artificial intelligence. Therefore, we are commemorating 2nd death anniversary of our beloved late Dr D. Gaba, with Sri Venkateshwar International School, Dwarka with a teaching module. Convener of program would be Dr Lalit Mendiratta and Dr Prashant Seth, who have great experience.

2. Monthly meetings: Pediatric health dialogue-Kaam ki Baat 2025 *(January, March, May, July, September, November 2025)- . As started by our predecessor team, we will conduct these meetings in association with various hospitals and nursing homes. Akash hospital  is associating  with our branch for first meeting on 16 th January 2025. Thanks to Dr Neha Bhandari and Dr SM Hasan (HOD-Ped) who would be coordinating the program. 

3. Pediatric health dialogue-Kaam ki Baat 2025 with subspecialities (February, April, June, August, October, December 2025 ): These meetings would be happening and first meeting will be in February foccussing on pediatric Neurology at Max hospital Dwarka.

4. SKILL A THON+WESTCON: We are enthusiastic to combine two events and will inform you once consensus has been found on dates and venues.

5. Website : We have decided to use website to interact and represent every member of IAP West Delhi through it.

6. We will work on Zoom based program and we will present it through recording at you tube and Facebook.

7. We would like to invite all of you to inform us about your research projects, success of life or interesting case stories.

8. We are going to do a Zoom Meeting with Dr Anita Sharma, educationist a mathematician, NCERT (National Council of educational research and training) member and who was part of new education policy; Topic would be: 

9. “Inculcating Child Literacy , a modifier of Health seeking behaviour of society: Impact of New CBSC Curriculum”

10. We will be gearing up to celebrate Down syndrome week March 2025 with HCMCT Manipal Hospital, sector 6 Dwarka, collaborating with IAP Delhi State.

11. We will continue to provide monthly OPD on zoom to DOWN SYNDROME FEDERATION OF INDIA.

12. We would take many sessions on adolescent behaviour and personality issues.

13. We need to engage community in each of our program.We will be celebrating CIAP/DIAP Days and weeks in accordance to information we get from the respective offices.

Friends, A quote by John Naisbitt  Is worth mentioning here: 
“We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.”

In the end, IAP West Delhi is committed to provide knowledge hidden behind these torrents of information. We are getting information about emergence of a new highly communicable HMPV (Human metapneumovirus) virus. Dataset revealed, rates of HMPV are ahead of other flu-like diseases—such as COVID-19, rhinovirus and adenovirus—linked to 6.2 percent of positive respiratory illness tests and 5.4 percent of respiratory-illness hospitalizations in China. We will be on track for the further evolution and will keep informing you. This is brief road-map of our subsequent tenure and we trust that we all be extract lot of joy while exploring the trove of knowledge.