Annual Conference · 2025

AIMCON 2025: Knowledge across borders of specialty

In its third edition, MERF’s annual conference grew into its national identity — drawing faculty from five AIIMS institutions across the country and structured around five named oration awards.

The 3rd National Annual Conference of the Medical Education and Research Foundation, held in association with the Indian Medical Association, Bettiah, returned to the two-day format on the 21st and 22nd of June 2025 at Shubharambh in Sariswa, West Champaran. By this third edition, the conference had grown into something genuinely national — faculty travelled in from AIIMS New Delhi, AIIMS Patna, AIIMS Raipur, AIIMS Jodhpur, and AIIMS Gorakhpur, alongside consultants from across Bihar and beyond.

Dr Sunny Singh served as Organizing Chairman with Dr Arvind Kumar as Organizing Secretary, supported by Dr Upendra Baitha as Co-Secretary and Dr Amitabh Chaudhary continuing as Convener. Dr Mohanish Sinha chaired the Academic Council, with Dr Jyoti Prakash (AIIMS Patna) as Academic Secretary.

Day 1 · BLS, ACLS, and a chest X-ray workshop

The opening day ran the full resuscitation training programme, beginning with the adult chain of survival and moving through scene assessment, chest compressions, pocket mask and bag-mask device technique, single- and two-rescuer adult BLS, AED operation, choking, team dynamics, and the cardiac arrest algorithm. The day culminated in a megacode skill station and concluded — fittingly — with a chest X-ray workshop led by Dr Saurav Gupta, bridging the resuscitation programme into the clinical content of Day 2.

Faculty included Dr Md. Sabah Siddiqui (AIIMS Raipur), Dr Arvind Kumar and Dr Upendra Baitha (AIIMS New Delhi), and instructors Mr Neeraj Kumar Swarnkar, Mr Vikram Singh Choudhary, Mr Ashok Kumar, and Mr Dragpal — all CRTP and AHA-accredited.

Day 2 · The main CME and five oration awards

The second day delivered the most ambitious academic programme MERF has hosted to date. Five oration awards punctuated the schedule:

• Sri Pracheta Oration Award 2025: From obstruction or growth — to a bundle of hope. Dr Mukta Agarwal, HOD, OBG, AIIMS Patna
• Dr Ajay Kr. Sinha Oration Award 2025: Management of a stable CKD patient. Dr Jyoti Prakash, Professor & HOD, Medicine, AIIMS Patna
• Maharshi Valmiki Oration Award 2025: Approach in extrapulmonary tuberculosis. Dr Neeraj Nischal, Medicine, AIIMS New Delhi
• Medical Education & Research Foundation Oration Award 2025: Pearls in ACLS and BLS. Dr Upendra Baitha, Medicine, AIIMS New Delhi
• Dr Sushil Prasad Chaudhary Oration Award 2025: Quackery — a medical mockery. Dr Pramod Tiwary, Bettiah

Beyond the orations, the programme covered preventive medicine, paediatrics (including a panel on antibiotic usage in paediatric age groups and an update on thalassemia), radiology, anaesthesia and critical care, obstetrics and gynaecology with a dedicated cluster on infertility and endometriosis, internal medicine and endocrinology, surgery and urosurgery, orthopaedics, pharmacology, rheumatology, dermatology, ophthalmology, and psychiatry.

A standout was the Master’s of the Master Session — a panel discussion on inter-professional behaviour in the medical fraternity, bringing together more than a dozen senior clinicians and patrons in one room to talk frankly about how the profession holds itself together. The day also dedicated a slot to free research paper presentations, with travel grants for selected authors — a step toward the research arm MERF has been building toward.

Looking back

AIMCON 2025 was a watershed. The conference now reaches across five AIIMS institutions, runs a structured oration awards programme alongside its CME, and has begun to make space for original research alongside clinical updates. Trainees walked away certified, faculty walked away with new collaborators, and the conversation about integrative medicine that started in 2023 — small, regional, ambitious — is now genuinely national.

Our thanks to the patrons — Dr Shushil P. Chaudhary, Dr N. N. Shahi, Dr K.S. Jha, Dr Ajay K. Sinha, Dr Pramod Tiwari, and Dr Dilip Kumar — to Guests of Honour Dr Shushil P. Chaudhary and Dr C.M. Jha, to Organizing Chairman Dr Sunny Singh, Organizing Secretary Dr Arvind Kumar, 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.