Om P. Chaurasia, MD, FACP

Dear Friends,

It has been a great honor and privilege to have served you as the 27th President of the Indian Medical Association of Southern California.

In nutshell, the year has been full of accomplishments. This obviously would not have been possible without the exemplary teamwork of committee members. I am greatly indebted to the members of the executive committee and board of trustees. Our members have been very positive and upbeat and have contributed greatly in various activities throughout the year.

We set out the year with clearly delineated written goals. I am glad to report that we have been successful in all fronts. To name a few, we (1) brought our Organization in to the electronic age by launching a comprehensive informational and interactive website, www.imasc.org, and establishing a comprehensive database including e-mail addresses of the membership, (2) received full CME accreditation by the Institute of Medical Quality of California Medical Association, (3) resumed community outreach charitable programs like health fairs, (4) resumed annual picnic, (5) resumed publication of the Annual Souvenir magazine.

One of the proudest achievements this year is our sound fiscal health. This is attributable to our strict fiscal discipline in both expenditure and raising funds and grants. We started the year with zero dollars in operational account. We are proud to report that we have raised a record amount of funds in a single year and we will have thousands of dollars in positive balance after paying off our expenses.

As we know, our strength lies in numbers. We undertook a vigorous membership drive. This included establishing a database of more than 500 physicians of Indian origin living in Southern California who were not members of the IMASC. Our efforts included mass mailings, and creating incentives like a raffle with a free round trip ticket to India. These efforts have been successful in recruiting a record number of new members in a single year. I am confident that the upcoming team would be able to build further on these efforts.

This year is marked with distinction of several achievements which have occurred for the first time. These include: (1) Recruitment of MSRF members (Medical students, residents and fellows). Over 50 are now MSRF members, (2) establishment of Research Awards and Distinguished service awards, and (3) Co-hosting the Governing body meeting of the AAPI (American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin).

In addition to educational activities for the members, we have had several family events like the annual picnic with anatakshari, games for kids and adults. We also had an “evening of entertainment” with music, karaoke and dance. I thank Dr. Mahesh Vyas for coordinating these events.

Our educational activities have been of high caliber and had high attendances. I extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Pramod Multani for his relentless work in successfully organizing these events. I thank Anju Multani, Esq, for her free legal counsel. Her help has been instrumental in developing our Health fair forms and reviewing the contracts. Our President elect, Dr. Naren Gurbani has done a fabulous job in putting together this journal and I thank him warmly for this. Dr. Jayshree Vyas has not only been a superb Secretary, but also a kind hostess of our Joint meeting at her home and MC of the entertainment program. This year’s treasurer, Dr. Vinod Ambastha, in his usual soft but strong demeanor, has nicely maintained the accounting with due diligence. Our cooperation with board of trustees has been exceptional. I owe this greatly to Dr. Pad Krishna, Chair of Board of trustees who I found to be a transparent, straight talking, and no non-sense person of integrity. My heartfelt thanks go to the research & awards committees led by Drs. Ravi Berry and Alex Kuruvila respectively for their diligent and hard work. I thank Dr. Janak Chopra for organizing hugely successful health fairs. I thank all members of our executive committee who have been phenomenal and went beyond the usual in actively helping and supporting various activities. I thank all the members for their strong support and our sponsors for making this a successful year.

Finally, I would like thank my wife, Ranjana for her strong support and encouragement and my children Priyanka, Neha and Pranay who put up with their daddy’s absence in many of their activities over this year.

I am confident that the upcoming team led by Dr. Naren Gurbani would build further on our successes and make the IMASC reach another height and to keep this Organization strong and vibrant.

Long live IMASC!


Om P. Chaurasia, MD, FACP

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