City doc proposes joint congress to improve breast healthcare

Hyderabad-based Dr P Raghuram, president elect, Association of Breast Surgeons of India (ABSI) addressed the 16th Annual Congress of American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBrS) held in Orlando on Saturday. Addressing delegates from across the globe, Dr Raghuram proposed to host a joint congress of ABSI in association with ASBrS in 2016 in India.

The proposal was well received and found promising to the President of the ASBrS Prof. Hiram Cody. This proposed joint congress will be a landmark first-of-its-kind initiative where resources and expertise from all across the USA will be mobilised and the many Indian breast surgeons working in the USA will be roped in to improve the delivery of breast healthcare in India.

Emphasis of Dr Raghuram's talk was on the need to find ‘Indian solutions to Indian problems’ rather than blindly following guidelines that apply to the western world. In his address, Dr Raghuram outlined the genesis and implementation of the innovative large scale population-based breast cancer screening programme being implemented in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh aimed at detecting breast cancer in the early stages amongst the underprivileged women.