Dear All

Monsoon greetings. Let it rain rheumatology this season !

Science, especially written, has always been accused of monotony. And that’s why I guess, newsletters came into existence. By their very nature, newsletters ought to be informal, reflective, accommodative and a pleasure to read. While you would prefer reading an indexed journal in the tranquility and solitude of a library, newsletters can be brushed through in the TV room of your hospital where you get together for coffee and discuss sports and politics. And that is exactly we, from the editorial team, have tried and made this one. Our job was tough having taken over from the hard taskmaster Dr Banwari Sharma. His are shoes impossible to fill in ( both literally and otherwise !). We’ve tried our best and hope you go through the issue without putting it down, in one go and remember a thing or two from it, in permanence.

The issue, which is going to be quarterly from now on, will have scientific material (Quarterly highlights) in which we will try to cover abstracts of, what we deciphered, has been path breaking or most relevant in the last quarter of the year - both clinical and basic. A ‘Fellow’s corner’ will be dedicated to our fellows in training of what they wish to share with the organization (there is an interesting ‘clinical sign’ discussed in this issue). There’s also an ‘Industry desk’ that will bring briefs of recently approved drugs of rheumatology use and a ‘clinical pearl’ in which we will remind busy practitioners of our country of bedside interpretations they should not forget.

‘From the IRA’ will bring you latest events/CMEs organized by state chapters across the country and what you need to know as IRA members. Research grants, international fellowship awards and other achievements by our fellows will also be highlighted to encourage our seeds to grow. Any announcements that the secretary IRA feels should be made will be e-printed in this section as a reminder to all.

‘Patient’s perspective’ deals with inputs from patients without whom we would not be. This issue includes information about three support groups working actively in our country, a small study ( question answered by patients) conducted in South India and a real life story by a patient with Sjogren’s syndrome.

‘My life, my times’ carries an interview with a leading name in the fraternity – should be an example to the youth in the organization and an inspiration to set ‘outcome measures’ to our professional lives.

We pay our respect and condolences to Dr G.H. Tilve (Former head, Dept of medicine, Sheth GS Med college, KEM hosp, Mumbai; also was past president IRA ’94-95) who we lost in March earlier this year.

As they say the show must go on and therefore, we decided to rope in at least one section on any exceptional extra-medicine milestone that someone from our fraternity has achieved. “Life is not all medicine’ in this issue is about the breathtaking adventure to the Himalayas by one of our own. It is easily the NF kappa B of the transcriptional machinery of the newsletter. Read it and breathe and live the Himalayas.

Change is paramount. Change is inevitable. Change invites curiosity. We mean to bring a change, a difference to rheumatology India. And for the same will need the blessings of the seniors ( and we’ve had it in our respected President’s message) and involvement of youth. The previous issue editorials always ended with ‘please send your suggestions to iraenewsletter@hotmail.com. While Dr Banwari painstakingly went through the mailbox every time, these were seldom. I entreat you, especially the younger brigade to indulge, involve, propose, criticize and thus contribute to the betterment of this informal reflection of the IRA. We do not need praise. Our improvement lies in knowing where and how we can make it more engaging so our people read this before the newspaper for that day every 3 months !

You can email me on sapancpandya@yahoo.com too for any of the above.

Thanking immensely the IRA for putting the faith in me, I must be grateful to the team that has contributed to this ‘science with fun’ attempt as I’m reminded of H.E.Lucock :

‘No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it’.

Sapan Pandya, Ahmedabad
Editor, IRA E Newsletter