Greetings and warm wishes to all of you.
I am really thankful to IAMM fraternity for giving me the opportunity to be the President of this prestigious association, which is only growing since its inception.
There is an optimism for microbiologists to remain a step ahead of all microbes. This brings us to an important task of laboratory preparedness. The environmental changes, global warming, modifications in personal behaviour, changes in societal structure and increase number of vulnerable population, have all contributed to emergence and re-emergence infections The preparedness of laboratories to detect emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases in a timely manner can give leverage to the medical fraternity.
IAMM has a great strength of clinical microbiologists who wear more than one hat in tackling infectious diseases – laboratory diagnosis, infection prevention, antimicrobial resistance monitoring, research and teaching especially facing the challenge of competency based medical education that affected microbiology teaching the most.
Travel health is gaining importance in the present times and again the laboratory has a responsibility to upscale the diagnostics in a timely manner, and be prepared for any future threats. A clinical microbiologists’ responsibility is to also to take a leadership role in research related to diagnostics based on the need of our country and basic research for better understanding of the biology of microbes.
A threat simmering in the background is antimicrobial resistance. Now we understand that tackling AMR needs an integrated stewardship program where microbiologists contribute at all levels in the triad of diagnostic stewardship, infection prevention stewardship and antimicrobial stewardship. Timely detection and ongoing surveillance for resistance mechanisms for microorganisms is another component of laboratory preparedness. We can use the technology for rapid dissemination and sharing of our data which is accessible to all the stakeholders so that evidence can guide our strategies.
IAMM has taken up one more significant activity of education and knowledge dissemination to our PG students by involving them in scientific programs and initiation of masterclass for them. Our immediate past president Dr Camila Rodrigues and Secretary Dr Satish Patil and all the other members have steered the IAMM activities efficiently and we will continue to seek guidance from our seniors and experts for adding value to our activities.
Any suggestions and inputs are welcome from all members and specially our young technically savvy microbiologists with their innovative thoughts.
Best wishes
Arti Kapil
