Minutes of the General Body meeting of the Indian Association of Surgical Gastroenterology (IASG) held on 3rd October 2015 as part of the 25th IASGCON 2015 at Pune.

The meeting was held between 7.00 PM-8.00 PM at HALL A of the JW Marriot Convention Centre, Pune.

The General Body meeting commenced at 7:00 PM.

The President of the IASG Dr. Vikram Kate called the meeting to order and welcomed the members of the IASG for the meeting. A silent prayer followed this.

·  Approval of the past GBM minutes: The minutes of the GB meeting held during IASGCON-2014 were approved and passed by the members.

·  Annual report: Dr. S.M. Chandramohan, Secretary IASG, read the Annual Report, membership details and the audited accounts. It was passed by the GB.

·  CMEs /PG Clinics conducted: The following CMEs/PG clinics were conducted under the endorsement/ association of the IASG:

o  PG Clinics conducted at Hyderabad organized by Dr. GV Rao at the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology

§  The PG clinic was organized successfully and was attended by 87 students.

o  CME ON GI ONCOLOGY : Madurai

§  The CME was successfully conducted by Dr Ramesh Ardhanari and Dr Mohan Narasimhan. It was well attended. Instead of didactic lectures there were many panel discussions, which were well appreciated.

§  SSAT Representation of IASG -- Dr. GV Rao, Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, Hyderabad attended the Digestive Disease Week meeting in Washington May 15-19 2015 as a representative of the IASG and delivered a lecture on ERAS: Challenges in India.

New membership: 29 applications were received for Life membership. 27 applications were approved. One application DD is pending.

§  Accounts: Audited accounts submitted to ASI.

Income-

•  membership fees 2,00,000

•  late fee submission- 49,050

•  IASGCON 2013 3,00,000

INR 5,49,050

Expenditure-

•  International Faculty travel

IASGCON 2014 2,46,300

•  Bank charges 738

•  Web hosting 20,650

•  Available balance on 31.03.15- INR 35,34,885.00

•  IASGCON 2014(Ahmedabad):

•  Dr Sanjiv Haribakti submitted the audited accounts for IASGCON 2014 and presented a cheque for INR 82,900 to the IASG. The organisers of IASGCON 2014 want to donate a corpus of 8-9 lakh INR towards starting IASG Travelling Fellowship. It was indicated that this will be sufficient to generate an interest of INR 1 lakh per month so that it can be used to fund the travelling for the IASG Travelling Fellowship. Dr Haribhakti wanted the Fellowship to be used for training in minimal access GI Surgery. Many members including Dr T K Chattopadhyay opined that the travelling fellow can choose a speciality of his/her interest. The President apprised the GB that as per discussions of EC meeting a four member committee comprising the President, President-elect, Secretary IASG and one panel member from the IASGCON 2014 will be involved in the selection of the candidate for the Fellowship. The candidate should submit a proof of the acceptance of the abstract for presentation at the International Conference with the application. The minimum period of fellowship will be 2 weeks. All the members and the executive thanked Dr. Haribhakti for this gesture.

•  IASGCON 2015(Pune): A point was raised regarding the discounted registration. Dr Mahesh Thombare clarified to the GB that discount for IASG members could not be given in the final stages of registration.

•  The GB lauded the organizing Committee of IASGCON 2015 for their efforts in making the conference a success and congratulated all the organizers for the same.

•  IASGCON 2016 (Coimbatore): Dr Senthilnathan and Dr Rajapandian spoke on behalf of the Organising Committee of IASGCON 2016. They informed the GB that the Conference would be held at Le Meridian Hotel at Coimbatore between 6th and 9th of October 2016.

•  IASGCON 2017: There were two bidders for the IASGCON-2017. Dr Wasif Ali for Hyderabad and Dr R. Kalayarasan for Pondicherry. Dr Ramesh Ardhanari felt that since the next conference of 2016 is at Coimbatore 2017, Hyderabad could be the venue instead of Pondicherry, which is closer to Coimbatore. Dr Wasif Ali spoke on behalf of Hyderabad and Dr Kalayarasan on behalf of Pondicherry. Dr GR Verma opined that there should be some mechanism to distribute the IASGCON equally between all regions. Other members felt that it need not be region specific. Finally by a voice vote of 39-19 Pondicherry was given the privilege of hosting IASGCON 2017.

Dr R. Kalayarasan will be the Organizing Secretary for IASGCON 2017 to be held at Pondicherry.

•  IASG ENDORSEMENT OF CMEs in future: A request from Swasti Gastroenterology group, Ahmedabad for the IASG affiliation of their conference/course was discussed. The President informed the GB that the EC has decided to form a committee comprising President, President Elect and Secretary which will decide all future Endorsements. The members were apprised of the EC decision that the affiliation of the IASG will be granted only for the approval of the Conferences or CMEs and not for Master Class or Certificate Course. Guidelines will be framed for all such affiliations. This was approved by the GB.

•  Forthcoming CMEs for 2016: Dr VP Bhalla, Delhi has requested to conduct a Silver Jubilee CME in February 2016. The GB approved it.

•  IASG-SSAT initiative: Regarding the representative for DDW May 2016 -Dr V K Kapoor's (Lucknow) application for representing IASG at DDW in USA was discussed. It was decided that a committee should be formed before selecting a representative. It was also decided that a member who has represented the IASG at the SSAT or any International Conference couldn’t apply again for consideration as an IASG representative till three Years following his representation. Dr TK Chattopadhyay and Dr. N. Ananthakrishnan felt that only the President should represent IASG at DDW. However, Dr Bhalla opined that it should be the CV of a person which should be taken into consideration before sending a person to DDW as often the area of presentation at the DDW conference is communicated by the SSAT. It was decided that the President and Secretary in consultation with Dr. Bhalla would finalize the member representative for the SSAT.

•  IASG text book of surgery: It was informed to that the IASG textbook is in the final stages now.

•  New OFFICE BEARERS:

There were many nominations for the office bearers. But a few members graciously accepted to withdraw their nominations in favour of others.

The following members were elected unanimously by the GB:

President Elect: Dr V. Sitaram (Kolkata) unanimously elected as the President-Elect of the IASG for the year 2015-16.

Secretary: Dr. Pradeep Rabela (Hyderabad) was unanimously elected as the Secretary of the IASG for the year 2015-18.

Joint Secretary: Dr. Ashok Kumar (Lucknow) was unanimously elected as the Joint Secretary of the IASG for the year 2015-18.

Treasurer: Dr. Deepak Govil (Delhi) was nominated as the Treasurer of the IASG for the year 2015-18.

Executive Committee: The following members were unanimously elected to the Executive Committee of the IASG for the year 2015-17. Dr. P. Senthilnathan (Coimbatore), Dr. C. Madhusudhan (Hyderabad), Dr. Sandeep Singh Saluja (Delhi), Dr. G. R. Verma (Chandigarh), Dr. Mahendra Narwaria (Ahmedabad).

Outgoing members:

President (2014-15): Dr Vikram Kate (Pondicherry)

Secretary (2012-15): Dr SM Chandramohan (Chennai)

Joint Secretary (2012-15): Dr Ramesh Ardhanari (Madurai)

Treasurer (2012-15): Dr AS Soin (Delhi)

EC members (2013-15): Dr. S. Shankar, Dr. Vishnu Prasad NR, Dr. Sarfaraz Baig, Dr. VP Bhalla, Dr. Rajesh Bhojwani

The GB thanked the outgoing office bearers for their contribution

President: The incoming President Dr. Anil Agarwal (Delhi) was felicitated and took over as the President of the IASG for the year 2015-16 from Dr. Vikram Kate. The outgoing President Dr. Vikram Kate thanked the GB for their support.

The meeting concluded by the President thanking all the members for their participation and inputs.

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