Abstract
There has been an increased demand for aesthetic surgery in society over the last decade. Even though the Indian Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (IAAPS) was founded by the hard-working stalwarts in 1995, the challenges and tasks of the association have changed dramatically. The association not only should support the members academically by holding conferences and teaching pro-grammes, but also help them build credibility, authority and legal support.
Ease of Membership Application
Keeping this in mind, the IAAPS started online membership with a simple Google Form for membership with the ability to upload payment done message and pre-worded letters of reference from existing members. This turned out to be a game-changer. More members joined under the IAAPS umbrella to seek academic and legal advice, harness the teaching capability and experience of the Indian faculty working in our own community through fellowship programmes.
IAAPS also recognises that a focus on aesthetic surgery in plastic surgery departments is more needed, along with trauma and cancer reconstruction, burns and congenital anomalies.
The Faculty Bank
We are creating a faculty bank to identify published authors or surgical demonstrators who can connect with medical colleges as needed. Many institutes like All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) are holding aesthetic updates so that the passing out plastic surgeons have enough knowledge and have heard practical points from experienced plastic surgeons. The faculty bank will be headed by Karthik Ramaswamy. This will also help us send right faculty to IAAPS endorsed symposia as well as international participation with other organisations like ISAPS, ASAPS, BAAPS, Cairo-face and many more.
The social outreach programme of IAAPS holds most important attempt to connect with the lay public and introduce them to trained, well-qualified aesthetic plastic surgeons who have a deep understanding of tissue handling, aesthetics and technology. Unless we go out there and emphasise our expertise, patients cannot discriminate between a legitimate, honest and transparent qualified doctor and a quack.
Monthly Blog
We publish blogs by members every month and select a winner and three more blogs to publish on every Friday—Saturday on social media. Younger talent is enthusiastic; judges are our own senior members. The selection of the trending topics of the month and keywords is done by Jayantkumar Dash, chairperson blog committee along with Itishree with Sudhanshu Tripathi and Devanshu Kalra. Mahesh Nair’s role is indispensable as co-ordinator with our professional media team. We hope to progress to search engine optimisation (SEO) of our website. Highlighted member profiles can be created as sanctioned in the GBM of 2020. We will work more closely with this concept where the member can put up his/her area of interest with five pre- and post-pictures and back links to their own website.
Currently, the advocacy of social media and blog posts is being done effectively by Saumya Kumar Nayak with full dedication.
Consent Forms
One crown jewel of IAAPS is the IAAPS consents project. This year, we move forward with the 12 procedure-specific consents, general complications of surgery and anaesthesia consents and video-photography consents—to translate them into regional languages. This project will be headed by Mangesh Tandale and Vikramsingh Rathore with many of our members in different states. The work is underway.