ILLUMINATI – 18 HELD IN AFMC , PUNE
ILLUMINATI is an undergraduate medical conference organised by the Students’ scientific society of Armed Forces Medical College, Pune. The 9th edition of this conference was held this year from 10th to 12th August 2018. 650 delegates from 58 Medical colleges attended this three day event.
The theme of the conference this year was ‘Bridging the Gap’, focusing on delivering healthcare to the underprivileged . The conference witnessed guest orations from Dr Kartik Kalyanram, Smt Ruby Ahluwalia, Dr VishweswarChilumkurti and Dr Aseem Mishra.
Dr KartikKalyanram spoke about providing healthcare in a drought prone underprivileged rural community and the challenges and frustrations associated with it. Smt Ruby Ahluwalia , a cancer survivor and a public servant, spoke about her organisation ‘Sanjeevani’ which provides emotional and professional support to cancer victims. She has set up wellness clinics for cancer patients in 10 cities across India.
Dr Vishweswar Chilumkurti dwelled upon gaps in the public health system of the country and the stark contrast between private and public health sectors. Dr.Aseem Mishra is the chief technology officer at KIIT Technology Business Incubator. He has created specialised turn key facilities that provide high tech research facilities to medical and life science startups in the country. His talk was on the topic ‘Ideas to Ventures’.
Apart from the guest orations , there were paper and poster presentations, medical symposia and debate. A quiz on immunisation and vaccine preventable diseases was conducted by world-renowned quiz master and an Air Force surgeon GpCaptAnurakshat Gupta. He is an inductee into the quizzing and trivia Hall of Fame. On 12th August, 11 workshops were conducted which were attended by close to 600 undergraduate students. They varied in theme from basic surgical, clinical and nursing skills to orthopedic first aid and examination of the examiner’s psyche. Finally Illuminati 2018 also witnessed the release of India’s first undergraduate medical research journal titled ‘Praxis’.
