Annual Conference · 2023

AIMCON 2023: A landmark in integrative modern medicine

Two days. Forty-plus speakers across twelve specialties. One unifying idea — that good patient care doesn’t recognize the boundaries between disciplines.

The Advanced Integrative Modern Medicine Conference (AIMCON) 2023 — MERF’s annual flagship gathering — convened in Bettiah on the 27th and 28th of May, bringing together clinicians, educators, and trainees from across the country and abroad. Hosted in collaboration with the Indian Medical Association and Government Medical College, Bettiah, the conference set out to answer a simple question: how do we deliver comprehensive care when modern medicine has fragmented into ever-narrower specialties?

As Dr Gunjan K Bhagwat, the Organizing Secretary, framed it in his welcome address: “An ailment does not differentiate among the divisions of specialties or subspecialties. A medical problem seeks comprehensive and timely care.” That conviction shaped every session of the programme.

Day 1 · Hands-on resuscitation training

The conference opened at the Academic Block of GMCH with a full-day workshop on Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life Support, conducted by AHA-accredited instructors from AIIMS New Delhi. Delegates rotated through skill stations covering scene assessment, chest compressions, bag-mask ventilation, single- and two-rescuer BLS, AED operation, choking management, team dynamics, and the cardiac arrest algorithm — culminating in megacode skill stations and certification by Dr Dinesh Kumar, Principal of GMCH.

For many of the medical trainees in attendance — undergraduates, interns, and residents from GMCH — it was their first formal exposure to AHA-protocol resuscitation training. Faculty included Dr Arvind Kumar (AIIMS New Delhi), Dr Upendra Baitha (AIIMS New Delhi), and instructors Mr Vikram Singh Choudhary, Mr Neeraj Kumar Swarnkar, and Mr Ashok Kumar.

Day 2 · Twelve specialties, one conversation

The second day moved to the Triple Crown Hotel and unfolded as a deliberately broad academic programme — sessions running from preventive medicine through to psychiatry, with a clear preference for talks pitched at the practitioner who will need to recognize, refer, or manage at the first point of contact. Topics included:

• Paediatrics: nutritional supplementation in infancy, suspecting heart disease early, must-know vaccinations across specialties
• Radiology & Pathology: ultrasound as a bridge to primary care, chest X-ray essentials, hemogram interpretation for the clinician
• Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Infertility: approaching the infertile couple, GDM prescribing, third-stage labour management, miscarriage care
• Medicine & subspecialties: stable CKD prescribing, acute MI, the unresponsive patient, NAFLD, tuberculosis, common infections, cancer care
• Surgery: general surgery in rural practice, gall bladder cancer advances, intestinal obstruction, wound care, burns, renal stones
• Orthopaedics, Ophthalmology & Psychiatry: bone health, cervical and low back pain, retinal screening in diabetes and hypertension, depression and somatic-complaint prescribing

Sessions were chaired by senior clinicians from across Bihar and beyond, with faculty drawn from AIIMS New Delhi, AIIMS Patna, AIIMS Raipur, AIIMS Jodhpur, Medanta Patna, GMCH Bettiah, and international institutions including New York Medical College, Lake Granbury Medical Center (Texas), and consultants based in California and Singapore.

Looking back

AIMCON 2023 succeeded on its own terms. Trainees walked away certified in BLS and ACLS. Practitioners returned home with practical prescribing frameworks across more than a dozen subspecialties. And — perhaps most importantly — clinicians who rarely share a room ended the weekend in conversation, which is the harder, slower work the conference was designed to encourage.

Our thanks to the patrons — Dr Shushil P. Chaudhary, Dr N. N. Shahi, Dr K S Jha, Dr Pramod K. Tiwary, and Dr Dilip Kumar — to Organizing Chairman Dr Satyajeet Nandkeolyar, and to every faculty member, chairperson, delegate, and volunteer who made the two days possible.

AIMCON returns annually. Watch the Events section for upcoming editions.