Minutes of Annual General Body Meeting (GBM) - 2023

Venue :: Auditorium, Dayanand Medical College & Hospital, Ludhiana, Punjab.
Date :: 03/02/2023 ( Friday )
Time :: 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm

The General Body Meeting was held during the Eleventh National Conference of Society of Clinical Anatomists (SOCA)

MEMBERS PRESENT ::

The members present for the General Body Meeting were as per the Register. Apology of absence was received from Dr.M.Kavimani, Treasurer – SOCA, Dr.V.Gladwin, Associate Secretary – SOCA and Dr.Ranjit Guha, EC Member. Since the required quorum was available, the President, Dr. M.Sivakumar welcomed all the members who were present and declared order to convene the General Body Meeting of the Society of Clinical Anatomists. The Meeting started after paying homage to departed souls of following Clinical Anatomists: Dr.Ravi Prasanna, Dr.Gopalan, Dr.Rani Kumari, Dr.Ratnakar Rao, Dr.Krishnamurthy and Dr.Kamala Seth.

1. Annual Report by the General Secretary : The annual report of the Society of Clinical Anatomists was presented by the General Secretary, Dr. N. Muthukumaravel. He briefed about the growth of the society since 2011 and also last year activities of the society. He appreciated Dr. Hitant Vohra, the Organizing secretary and Dr.Anu Sharma, Co-organizing Secretary of the 11th annual conference of the Society and the team for accepting and organizing the same. He also reported that till then 2170 clinical anatomists have become members of the society. Dr.Muthukumaravel conveyed that for first time in history of SOCA, first ever Life Time Achievement Award to Dr.Sudha Seshayyan and first ever R.N. Mukherjee Memorial Award to the Best Paper published in the last full volume of SOCA’s National Journal of clinical Anatomy to Dr.Priya Santosh Patil were presented during this 11th Conference at Ludhiana, Punjab. He also conveyed the heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Richard Tunstall (in person) from UK and Dr.Gulgun Sengul (online) from Turkey for being guest speakers for the Conference. The General Body unanimously approved the General Secretary’s report.


2. Annual Report by the Treasurer : The interim report of the finance for the year 2021-22 was presented by Dr.N.Muthukumaravel, General Secretary on behalf of the Treasurer. The statement of accounts of the Society was displayed for the members’ perusal. The Balance in Society’s account in IOB branch, Valasaravakkam, Chennai as on 28-01-2023 was Rs.18,28,697/- The General Body unanimously approved the Treasurer’s report.


3. Report by Editor-in-Chief of National Journal of Clinical Anatomy : Dr. Kumar Satish Ravi, Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of National Journal of Clinical Anatomy presented the annual report of the Journal for the period May 2022 to Feb 2023.
   
   Dr. Kumar Satish Ravi presented the achievements of National journal of Clinical Anatomy after he took over the charge as Editor in chief since 13th April 2020. He discussed about all the steps taken in order to index and empower the journal and also to make it financially stable.

The following Editorial board approved proposals were put forward ::



1. To have national lectures for faculty and students.


2. Revised subscription charges w.e.f 01/03/2023 i.e. Rs.9999/- and Rs.11,999/- for individual and agency subscription.


3. To promote the members of SOCA & Budding Clinical Anatomists - Best paper Award was being initiated. The office Bearers of SOCA/Editorial Board Members of NJCA would not be considered for this Award. If they wish to be considered, they need to resign from the post. Registration and participation in the SOCA Conference are mandatory to receive the Award. To receive the Award in absentia, they need to pay Rs.5000 to NJCA so that it could be dispatched like other Society.


4. To limit the printing of hard copies of the Journal - it will be printed only for the subscribers.


5. To avail marketing services by Wolter Kluwer as put forth by EiC - it was approved.


6. Publication charges for foreign author - waiver displayed in the journal Website.


7. To send letters to Head of the Institutions and librarians to subscribe the journal (hard copy of letter).


8. To increase the frequency of the Journal after Pubmed indexation.


9. To have special issue by guest editors.


10. SOCA membership mandatory for the anatomists to publish in NJCA (first 3 and corresponding authors).


11. Old Chennai journal bank account to be closed.


12. To invite applications from different parts of the country to organise Workshops and Certificate courses.


13. To have Office Assistant with Rs.15,000/- per month pay.


14. To felicitate outstanding editor/reviewer from next year and to make registration free.


15. To accept donations.


16. To have Center of Excellence for “Evidence based Anatomy” at the office of EiC.

Financial report of the Journal ::



1. Bank account balance as on May 2022 – Rs.28,81,835/- and as on February 3rd 2023 – Rs. 33,47,503/-


2. Saved Rs. 60,000/- last year by managing Office Assistant’s work.


3. Plagiarism checking – EiC saving $1 USD for every checking using personal logistics.
   
   
Academic achievements NJCA ::



1. For 3rd consecutive year, World Anatomy Day was celebrated by NJCA with the following eminent academicians’ participation on 15/10/2022. Theme: Evidence based Anatomy.


Chief Guest ::


1. Dr. B.N. Gangadhar, Ex Director, NIMHANS Bangalore and President, MARB, National Medical Commission.


Guest Speakers ::


a. Dr. Meenu Singh, Executive Director, AIIMS, Rishikesh - Preparing and publishing: A systematic review.

b. Dr. Surekha Kishore, Executive Director, AIIMS Gorakhpur - Quantitative research: Methods, challenges, and Key steps and Research.

c. Dr. Mukesh Tripathi, Director, AIIMS Mangalagiri - Publications: Why do we need to do?


Webinar had over 1500 registrations and sessions were well appreciated by the delegates.

2. National level Essay Writing Competition was organised on the occasion of World Anatomy Day for faculty and residents/ MBBS students under two categories with topics “Implications of Evidence based anatomy” and “The role of visualization techniques in learning Anatomy” respectively. The response was overwhelming for the competition.

Prize winners of the competition were ::


Residents / MBBS Students ::

1st Prize – Riju A, Government Medical College, Nilgiris.

2nd Prize – Arush islam, Yenopoya Medical college, Mangalore.

3rd Prize – Dr. Suranjana Banik, Senior resident, AIIMS, Bhubaneswar.


Faculty ::


1st Prize - Dr. Vasudha Kulkarni, Professor & Head, Dept of Anatomy, Akash Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Center, Bangalore.

2nd Prize - Dr.Renuka S. Ahankari, Professor of Anatomy, Smt. Kahibai Navale Medical College & General Hospital, Narhe, Pune.

3rd Prize - Dr. Praisy Joy.R, Assistant Professor of Anatomy, AIIMS Bhubaneswar.


3. Initiation of Best paper Award 2021- initially we got offer from a foreign surgeon but it was not considered. Now, we are giving Award in the name of Dr.R.N.Mukherjee with donation by Dr.Patnaik. We had constituted Committee of Judges with 4 members (President or his/ her nominee, General Secretary or his / her nominee and Two editorial board members nominated by Editor-in-Chief.). Dr. R.N. Mukherjee memorial best paper Award 2021 was given to Dr.Priya Santosh Patil - Cash Prize- Rs.5,000/- and a medal.

4. EiC was invited by FICSP of IFAA for guest lecture on writing original research article.

Other achievements ::


• Acceptance rate of NJCA- 13% and Rejection rate – 56%.

• 170 individual subscribers so far.

• More than 60 agency subscribers for the year 2022.

• Manuscript submission from UK, West indies, Iran, Nigeria, Japan, etc.,

• To improve social media visibility, social media pages of NJCA have been created on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

• The Editor-in-Chief put forward his future vision to make NJCA as one of the top Journals in CLINICAL ANATOMY.

• Increasing the frequency to bimonthly from the following year and then, monthly form 2025.

• Increasing the number & variety of articles in each issue

• Streamlining, strengthening & decentralizing the review process - section editors and article editors.

• Publishing Series of articles and sorting out online courses on research methodology, grant writing, manuscript writing, thesis writing, research ethics and educational research with special emphasis on CBME/OBE and Medical Education features.

• Reviewing and applying for PubMed/SCI to get Impact Factor two years later.

• Increment perceivability/citation-Cite score and Quartile ranking altimetric, Social Media Presence.

• Incentive as waiver of publications charges for reviewers on successful completion of four reviews and reviewer certificate for each review process.

• To conduct Workshops, fellowship courses with the help of renowned institutions like CMC Vellore. JIPMER, etc.,

All the above agenda were duly approved by General Body unanimously and the Report of Editor-in-chief was passed.

The General Secretary, Dr.N.Muthukumaravel appreciated the excellent efforts of Dr. Kumar Satish Ravi for initiating the R.N. Mukherjee Memorial Best Paper Award.

4. Venue of the next SOCA conference : As decided in the Executive Committee meeting, The Department of Anatomy, Dr.D.Y.Patil Medical College, Pimpri, Pune, Maharashtra headed by Dr.Preeti Sonje will organize the 12th Annual Conference of SOCA in the year, 2024. This decision was approved by the General Body unanimously. Dr.Preeti Sonje came to the dais and welcomed the members to the next SOCA Conference to be organized by them.

5. Decision on Office bearers and EC Member : As per the decision of the General Body, the Office Bearers and Executive Committee (EC) Members who did not attend EC Meeting for three consecutive years will be removed from the post. The Members who had attended minimum three General Body Meetings only will be eligible to be considered to become EC Members from next year onwards. For this purpose, an Application Format is to be released in Society Website, www.clinicalanatomists.org and applications to be received from the eligible members and to be included during next General Body Meeting.

6. New Life Members of the Society : The General Secretary put forth a resolution to approve the clinical anatomists who had been admitted as new life members after due verification during the last year. The members unanimously approved the resolution and welcomed the new life members to the society.

7. Other Matters : The General Body approved the Executive committee decision of increasing the SOCA life membership fee from Rs.1,500/- to Rs. 3,000/-. Also, the following protocol for future Organizers of SOCA conference framed by the Executive Committee was approved: The Brochure, Programme Schedule and Dais plans of the Conference and related events need to be got approved by the Core group of the Society consisting of the President, General Secretary and Editor-in-Chief.

Then, the General Body was pronounced over by the President.

        Dr. N. Muthukumaravel                    Dr. M. Sivakumar
        General Secretary, SOCA                President, SOCA