Dear All

The tide is high, and the water current is fast: this is true of both the monsoon and political affairs in the country. As the Indian map undergoes a major change, we at the helm of the newsletter team, also thought of bringing about a change in the contents. As per the advice of the president, Dr. Debashish Danda, and our EC committee, we have tried to make this issue more patient-friendly.

Patients define us. Their perspectives have become very important worldwide for all disease-related treatment decisions. We must try and keep pace with the world. I hope they can actively participate in this activity of the IRA, for making science more applicable.

For members, there is important information on the ICR (Indian College of Rheumatology) by Dr. Handa, and also notifications from APLAR and IRACON (applications for orations/awards and abstract submissions) and reports of various patient education meets held around the country in the last quarter and about upcoming conferences. We are going ahead with online voting this time for the IRA elections; all members will soon receive notifications about the same through SMS and email.

Benzitta Pinto tickles our bone with her write-up on her experience as a rheumatology trainee; she also writes a different column on general information about rheumatology for our patients. Avinash Jain writes about our (clinician’s) perspective and reminds us of what we ought to be! There are reports by Antardhwani, the ankylosing spondylitis support group, on its activities and a write-up by Chitra Umaa Shankar, a patient of RA on her ordeal, in the column “My Life, My Choices”—it is a must-read for everyone. Sanket Shah answers common questions on RA, again for our patients; indeed, we could share this with our own patients in our OPDs. And Saumya Ranjan Tripathy has questions for patients to answer!

We will be incorporating the newsletter on the website from now on for everyone to see and comment on.
Help us by sending your feedback to iraenewsletter@gmail.com or sapancpandya@yahoo.com.

We think we understand pain. We arbitrarily conclude that we help healing. It is the sufferer who should have the final word and hence the change. Half of clinical medicine is about listening. Let us try and remove existing boundaries and form a new union territory of love and care.

“They said refinement is about taming the wild and weeding out the rustic. Shyam said it was about enhancing empathy.”
(From Shyam Bhagavata, by Devdutt Pattanaik)

Sapan Pandya
Editor, IRA E Newsletter