Hello Everyone,

Cancer is the new epidemic of the millennium. The number of patients diagnosed with cancer in India per year is reaching to almost fifteen lakh and more than half of these patients are dying of cancer sooner or later. One of the main reasons for high mortality from cancer is non-availability of treating facilities across the country. Majority of these cancers are solid cancers, and surgery is an important part of the treatment and contributes significantly to the survival of the patient. For the country at large, proper training in cancer surgery and availability of trained man power in cancer surgery are real needs of the hour.

At present per year nearly 250 new cancer surgeons are getting trained all across India. There are many roadblocks for creation and maintenance of adequately trained manpower. This include issues like inadequate distribution of the training facilities in the country, non-uniformity of training modules across various institutions, lacunae in skill and knowledge updation of the practising surgical oncologists and lack of job security for the freshly passing out cancer surgeons. But our fraternity is blessed with certain privileges as well; so many of our senior peers are top leaders in oncology : many are heading various major institutes, many are members in committees deciding the curriculum of medical education and public health care in the country and many are involved in training a large number of surgeons in Surgical Oncology. I strongly feel that it is the responsibility of IASO is to connect these leaders ,who are also international stalwarts in surgical oncology , to young budding onco-surgeons and use their collective opinions, power and actions to create better environment for the younger onco-surgeons and cancer surgery in the country .