Showcasing the imperative role played by a uniformed health professional in providing health care in the most trying circumstances, India’s Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar concluded the four-day Indo-Pacific Military Health Exchange (IPMHE-2021-22) conference.
The conference was co-hosted by Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) and US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM). The initiative described medical service as an important pillar for any military, as in addition to their own combat-related duties, the defence forces are the most valuable responders in times of natural and man-made calamities & crises.
Notably, the conference was based on the theme of military healthcare in a ‘Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous’ (VUCA) World.
The Defence Secretary lauded IPMHE for deliberating on various topics such as operational & combat medical care, global health security, challenges of COVID-19, military disaster drills and research & innovation in a VUCA world.
Assuring India’s full support to IPMHE, the Defence Secretary stressed on providing a global platform for shared & meaningful learning and addressing contemporary real-time & relevant issues pertaining to military medicine, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
VUCA: Part of our lexicon today
VUCA has been a part of our lexicon for quite some time, but Covid has brought it to the realisation that the world has truly become volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. In this context, the National response mechanism for short term crisis management, as well as long term strategy formulation, is under scrutiny across the globe.
The traditional sequence of problem formulation, detailed planning and bureaucratic way of implementing the steps was put to test, and it failed miserably during the pandemic. What worked though, can be termed an Agile model, where a corridor with feedback based course correction mechanism is the target instead of a rigid set goal.
Indian Economy has shown strong resilience and has bounced back from the crisis of COVID-19. This is where the conference emphasized to enhance cooperation and jointmanship in military medicine.
Under the conference various important topics were discussed including operational/combat medical care, tropical medicine, field surgery, field anaesthesia, aviation & marine medicine emergencies. More than 600 Indian and foreign delegates from more than 38 countries participated in the conference.
Focus on AI
The last day of the conference also witnessed the discussions between Indian and US experts on the role of Artificial intelligence (AI) as compared to Clinical Intelligence in the practice of medicine in a VUCA world.
Dr Kayvon Modjarrad from the US, whose team developed a novel SARS-CoV-2 vaccine based on nanoparticle technology, deliberated on various aspects of infectious disease response and future pandemic management.
Selected researchers from India, US and Indonesia were given the opportunity to present their best scientific papers at an international platform and awards in different categories of posters, platform and research innovations were announced by the scientific committee.
