From the New Secretary’s Desk……….
Season’Greetings.
Happy World Voice day.
Let me ,at the outset, thank the members of the Association of Phonosurgeons of India for electing me as the Honorary secretary of the Association. Three years old and after three successful Conferences at Hyderabad ,New Delhi and the recent Bhubaneswar Conference has put the association on par with other ENT Subspeciality societies. With 100+ members , the association is still in infancy has a long way to go.
It must be placed on record the services of Dr.V.Phaniendra Kumar who as the Founder President of the Association, has untiringly worked for the conceptualization, inception and taking the association to present heights. He is responsible for creating awareness about the Voice disorders and promoted the speciality by conducting a number of workshops. It is only apt for us to utilize his services as the Chairman of the association for a period of three years.
Dr.JayaKumar and Dr.Handa as the Vice President and Hon Secretary played a pivotal role in the establishment of the specilaity and the association. Both were sought after faculty members in the workshops around the lenghth and breadth of India. Dr.Jayakumar takes over as President and Dr.Handa as the Vice President from 2007 onwards.
Dr,Samantha Ray needs a special mention as he could successfully conduct the 3rd Annual Conference with Dr.Phaniendra Kumar’s backup and support. The scientific Programme went on very well and I would like to thank all the faculty members for their contribution and cooperation. My sincere thanks to Dr.PhaniendraKumar[Guntur],Dr.Jayakumar[Thiruvananthapuram],Dr.K.K.Handa [NewDelhi],Dr.Nupur Kapoor Nerurkar[Mumbai] and Dr.Amitabh Raychaudhari[Kolkata]. Unfortunately Col Dr.WVBS Ramalingam [New Delhi]and Dr.Sachin Gandhi[Pune] could not be with us because of disrupted flight schedules.
My heartfelt thanks to our overseas faculty Dr.James Thomas [USA],Dr.Sharath Mohan[UK] and Ms.kate who took time off from their busy schedules to be with us in this academic event. Dr.Sharath and Ms.Kate are almost part of us.
To host the 4th Annual Conference of APSI we have two nominations which shows the interest generated by the Otolaryngologists at kolkata and Mumbai. It was decided to conduct the Conference at Kolkata in 2008 with young and dynamic Dr.Amitabh Raychaudhari as the organizing Secretary. The details will be informed to you in due course.
I assure you we will do our best to take the APSI to further heights with the cooperation of all the members.
New Office bearers of APSI 2007-2010
Chairman President
V.Phaniendra Kumar Jayakumar
[Guntur] [Thiruvananthapuram]
Vice President
K.K.Handa
[New Delhi]
Hony Secretary
P.S.N.Murthy
[Vijayawada]
Treasurer
K.Krishna Kishore
[Visakhapatnam]
Executive Members
Abhoy kumar Kar [Berhampore]
Amitabh Roychaudhari [Kolkata]
Nupur kapoor Nerurkar [Mumbai]
Samatharay [Bhubaneswar]
B.Viswanadha [Bangalore]
Organizing Secretary
[APSICON 2008]
Amitabh Raychaudhari
[Kolkata]
Signposts:
1. Dr.Jayakumar was the keyspeaker at a oneday workshop on Voice disorders conducted at MIMS Hospital at Calicut on 7th January 2007.
2. Oneday Live Surgical Workshop on “Voice Disorders” organized by ENT dept of Golden Jubilee Medical College at Trichur on 21st January 2007.
3. Dr.Phaniendra Kumar has been invited as a faculty to the 36th annual symposium of Voice Foundation ofAmerica in June 2007 at Philadelphia.
World Voice Day
World Voice day dates back to 1999 when a few enthusiastic Brazilian Voice Care Professionals joined hands to celebrate “Brazilian Voice Day”. Then the Speech,Voice and Swallowing Committee of American Academy of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery endorsed it and approved to celebrate 16th of April 2002 as World Voice Day to celebrate the importance of human voice. Since then it has become an annual affair to mark 16th April as World Voice day everywhere. The need to promote the speciality of Voice and Communication, to bring the voice care professionals and the persons with voice disorders to a common forum where information can be disseminated and sensitize public and o create awareness among public.
Since last 4 years World Voice day is celebrated with different themes. In 2004 the theme was “ Healthy Voice “ to encourage all to assess their vocal health and take action to improve and maintain good voice habits. The focus was on voice care and voice disorders and to establish a long term effort to educate the public, media and voice care professionals regarding voice disorders and preventive voice care. A few brochures were prepared which can be downloaded from the official website of AAO-HNS where there is a dedicated page for the Voice day.
The theme for 2007 is “ Don’t tax your Voice” prompts us to consider ways and means to preserve and protect our voices to avoid developing voice disorders. As the healthcare providers it is our sincere responsibility to remind the public and media that the voice is a delicate communication instrument and it is to be used with care in order to prevent voice disorders and requires few ground rules to preserve it.
The magnitude of Voice related disease is underestimated and on an average it is expected that seven million persons have some sort of a problem. We have no such statistical data in India but in all probabilities it is on equal numbers.
What can you do as a Healthcare Provider interested in Voice?
Please inform your activities to the Honorary Secretary.
With Best wishes
Dr.P.S.N.Murthy
Hon.Secretary
Professor and
Head
Department of ENT
And Head & Neck Surgery
Dr.Pinnamaneni Siddhartha Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Foundation
Chinnaoutapalli
Krishna District
Andhra Pradesh
Editorial
Chairman
Indian Journal of otolaryngology and
Head & Neck Surgery
President Elect
AOI-AP branch
Vice President
All India Rhinology Society