The Vidarbha Orthopaedic Society Nagpur has a illustrous past having contributed great thought leaders on national and state level like Dr Vikram Marwah, who served as President of Indian Orthopaedic Association (1983), Dr Sudhir Babhulkar who served as President of Indian Orthopaedic Association (2001) as well as President of Maharashtra Orthopaedic Association (1998 & 1999), Dr Chandrashekhar Kulkarni who served as the President of Maharashtra Orthopaedic Association (2010) and Dr Ajit Phadke who is presently the President of Maharashtra Orthopaedic Association.
In a glittering ceremony held on Sunday morning, 19th June, at Hotel Center Point, Dr Rajendra Choudhary was installed as the President of Vidarbha Orthopaedic Society with Dr Alankar A Ramteke as Hon. Secretary. The meeting got an overwhelming response with 140 doctors in attendance that comprised not only of Orthopaedic surgeons from Vidarbha but also included prominent Anaesthesiologists, Pathologists and Physiotherapists participating in the academic deliberations. Orthopaedic Surgeons from Nagpur, Chandrapur, Akola, Amravati, Gondia, Bhandara attended the function.
Dr Mayil Vahanan Natarajan, Vice Chancellor of The Tamil Nadu MGR medical University Chennai was the Chief Guest for the installation ceremony. Dr Natarajan who is a pioneer in Orthopaedic Oncology, Past President of Indian Orthopaedic Association (2006), Padma Shri Awardee (2007) and recipient of BC Roy (2004) installed Dr Rajendra Choudhary as President and Dr Alankar A Ramteke as the secretary along with the team of executives. Dr Natarajan expressed great amazement at the excellent standard of work & preparations for the installation and showered heaps of appreciation on great academic initiatives being undertaken by the Society.
Noted senior Orthopaedic surgeon of Central India Prof Sudhir Babhulkar who was the Guest of Honour, lauded the work of Vidarbha Orthopaedic Society and expressed satisfaction at the wonderful academic and professional success and achievement of his students and colleagues; Dr Babhulkar being the founding President of the Society. The present Maharashtra Orthopaedic Association President Dr Ajit Phadke and MMC award winners Dr Sudhir Babhulkar and Dr Sanjiv Chaudhary were felicitated at this ceremony.
The installation program was preceded by a CME on ‘Bone Tumour Update’. Dr Mayil Natarajan discussed at length how bone tumour management in India has improved phenomenally over last couple of decades. He stated that until up to last 15 – 20 years ago, malignant bone tumour patients had very poor prognosis and the treatment options in these young patients were either amputation or certain death owing to spread of cancer.
With scientific advancement and modern day surgical technique, the life expectancy has tremendously improved, disability is avoided and patients are able to lead near normal life. He showed a spectrum of cases where tumour was successfully surgical removed and damaged bone was replaced by tumour prosthesis. In some cases whole thigh bone was replaced by artificial metal bone when the tumour damaged the whole bone – total femoral replacement, hemi-pelvis replacement, total scapular replacement etc. He shared many cases where the life and limb of bone tumour patients was saved even after the tumour has spread to lungs with use of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy, lung lobe resection and use of tumour prosthesis.
As the foreign made tumour prosthesis were very expensive, orthopaedic surgeons and bio-mechanical engineers in India have developed stainless steel artificial bones and joints which have very satisfactory early results but are less than half the price of foreign prosthesis. Dr Sunita Lawange, famous anaesthesiologist spoke about Management of intractable pain in bone tumours and Dr Kamayani Deshpande, famous pathologist of the city discussed about role biopsy in bone tumours. Dr. Faisal Mohammed, Dr Sandeep Shrivastava and Dr Samir Kalkotwar discussed various treatment modalities of bone tumours. Dr Atul Rewatkar presented his work on advantages of interventional radiology in bone tumour management.
Dr Nawaid Ahmed & Dr Mehandi Hasan Ansari were masters of ceremony. Dr Samir Dwidmuthe, Dr Parag Raut, Dr Sandip Agrawal, Dr Abhijit Fuladi, Dr Ashish Thakur worked hard for successful organization. Dr Rajendra Choudhary, President, VOS for 2016-17 expressed satisfaction over the functioning of the society and declared that this year the Society will conduct many national conferences like Nagpur Arthroplasty Conference in September and VOSCON in November. He also formally announced conducting of POSICON 17 the first ever international pediatric Orthopaedic Conference in Maharashtra to be held in Nagpur in January 2017, for which advanced preparation is already underway.
Dr Alankar A Ramteke, Hon. Secretary for 2016-17 expressed resolve to make effort towards developing Vidarbha Orthopaedic Society a hub of orthopaedic academics, research and innovation in whole of Central India and proposed his vote of thanks.
