Dear AKMG family & friends,
 I feel very privileged for having been elected as President of the AKMG for 2010-11. On July 31, 2010, at the Westin Convention Center in Vancouver, British Columbia, I took over the leadership of this prestigious organization. I am proud to lead an organization that represents more than three thousand physicians of Kerala heritage practicing medicine in North America. I have made a promise to organize the thirty second annual AKMG convention as something unusual and memorable. We will be setting sail from Seattle on July 3, 2011 for a 7 day, twenty hour CME convention to Alaska aboard the Norwegian Pearl. As of last month, 450 people have registered. The demand is high, so please do not wait.  The discounted price (plus full tax benefits and free companion travel) will end soon! We will be joined on the cruise ship by highly accomplished artists, chefs and performers from Kerala. CME lectures will be given mostly by our own academicians. You may download reservation form from our web site, fill it out and e-mail or fax with a refundable deposit of $500 by credit card or post a $500 check in favor of Cruise Connections Canada to me or the convention chair Dr. Sunil Kumar, as soon as possible. I will make sure you will get the discounted price. See below for details.
As promised our team will contact every AKMG member to update the AKMG database and directory in the next few months. Thanks to the membership committee, lead by Dr. Majeed Paduvana, hundreds of new members have been recruited. I will work with Dr. P to enroll more members this year. A dual membership drive with AAPI is being discussed with AAPI vice-president Dr. Narendra Kumar. I will do my best to expand young AKMG physician forum. This year I will be visiting local AKMG chapters, sister organizations like AKMG Dubai, and ATMG, U.K.
Every year AKMG supports a project in Kerala. I will not take up any new project with financial commitment. Instead, this year AKMG will offer educational and technical support to local (Kerala) projects aimed at alleviating emerging health threats, such as Obesity and Diabetes. Soon we will start a dialogue with the Government of Kerala, with help of Indian Medical Association to include healthy living in the school curriculum, starting from elementary. Dr. K.J Yesudas has requested our help with his new charitable foundation in Kerala to pay for open heart surgery, cochlear implant and cleft lip correction. I urge AKMG members to help this noble cause. This year AKMG will be promoting educational tours to various places, including Russia, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Australia. These study tours are organized by our big supporter Mr. George Palamattam. We will soon link our web site with his.
I appreciate immediate past president, Dr. P.C Punnen for his charisma and leadership qualities. I also congratulate him and his team for such a wonderful convention in Vancouver, which we all enjoyed, it was really good! It is the hard work, sincerity, commitment, love and dedication of our past 31 presidents to make our association to reach this glorious global level today. They have kept their commitment to various projects in Kerala, and have worked hard to achieve goals, such as: leaning resource centers attached to medical colleges in Trivandrum, Calicut, Kottayam, Alleppey and Trissur, Emergency Medical Services in Kerala, mammogram unit in Thrissur, women’s health in Kerala and Pediatric Cancer Care in Calicut. I salute them all for their compassion, unconditional commitment and unselfish dedication to reach above goals.
I want to congratulate Dr. Prem Menon for serving as chair of AKMG charitable wing. Over the years AKMG-HS have contributed to victims of Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and Haitian Earth quake. We have been feeding homeless and helping schools in India with financial difficulities.
Sincerely,
ARAVIND PILLAI MD
Address:
3241 Yattika Place,
Longwood,
FL 32779
Phone# 407-718-8733
Fax# 407-328-8030
Email: dpillai605@aol.com |
