Goals of 1st Indian Cancer Congress

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Published: 5 Dec 2013
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Dr Ashok K. Vaid - Medanta The Medicity, Haryana, India

Dr Ashok K. Vaid talks to ecancer about the development, goals and scientific programme of the 1st Indian Cancer Congress.

Read a report of this conference for free.

I think it was much beyond money itself, it was overall a resource mobilisation and, as we say, money makes the mare go and to put up such a mega-event one really needed a lot of it. It was an opportunity; it was a challenge, both. The unique part of this ICC has been that this is the first edition of the ICC - there was no precedent, there were no benchmarks. That had its own issues but we took the challenge and we looked at the opportunity as well. As I said, there were no precedents and there were no benchmarks, there were expectations and those expectations had to be met with adequate resources. I’m thankful to all those who contributed very generously, they were from the pharmaceutical sector, equipment manufacturers, publishers, much beyond that a lot of NGOs came forward, hospitals came forward even to the extent that people who had nothing to do with the pharmaceutical industry or the medical industry, even they came forward. At the end of the day we could get enough resources to mobilise the people coming from all parts of the country, this part of the world – South-East Asia, some of them coming from the Gulf region and our international delegates. A unique part of this conference has been that a lot of international faculty, those who were speakers, they came on their own which is unique. 75% funded their own transport and travel though we did extend our hospitality, the local hospitality, but that gave us the leverage of resource optimisation at this end. So this was something very unique.

The next guy, when we pass on the baton to the next prospective organising committee, this ICC has made the job easier in the sense that it has shown the scale and what I say is a do-ability, that this can be done. Now I agree it could have been better, it could have bettered… everything can be better at the end of the day. We have set up some sort of a scale, the next organising committee will have the task of raising the bar; we wish them good luck and more resources at the end of the day.