‘Sushruta: The Health Conclave’: Know The Guests & Panelists

Bhubaneswar: Leading digital news platforms Odisha Bytes and Odisha Sambad are for the first time organising ‘Sushruta: The Health Conclave’ on June 30 (Thursday) at Mayfair Convention in Bhubaneswar.

The conclave will have two highly relevant panel discussions on ‘Epidemics are here to stay: the way ahead’ and ‘Cancer is beatable: The Dostarlimab hope’ about two of the most discussed diseases, COVID and cancer, in recent times. Noted storyteller Prachitara will add a different flavour to the event by staging a performance on mental health.

KNOW THE GUESTS, PANELIST & MODERATORS

Inaugural Session

Odisha’s Minister for Health and Family Welfare Naba Kishore Das will grace the inaugural ceremony as Chief Guest. Das has been serving as Health & Family Welfare Minister of Odisha since Naveen Patnaik began his fifth term in office as chief minister in 2019. The 3-time MLA from Jharsuguda has been at the forefront of the battle against COVID for which Odisha earned appreciation from the WHO. Odisha also got a pat from the Central Government for being among the top two states in containing and combating the pandemic efficiently.

Chairman of Ashwini Group of Hospitals and eminent orthopaedic Dr Subrat Jena and Chief Executive Officer of SUM Ultimate Medicare Swetapadma Dash will be Guests of Honour of this session.

Dr Jena is the Chairman-Founder of Ashwini Group of Hospitals. He did his MBBS from SCB Medical College in 1977, MS (Orthopedics) from MKCG Medical College in 1982 and M.Ch Plastic Surgery from BHU in 1985. From 50 beds with three departments, Ashwini Hospital has grown into a multi-speciality facility with 350 beds under his leadership and the group now boosts of medical headquarters, trauma centre, nursing school and college.

 The Chief Executive Officer of SUM Ultimate Medicare, Swetapadma Dash is one of the most farsighted and result-driven CEOs in the healthcare sector. She entered the then-nascent healthcare industry of Bhubaneswar with Ayush Hospitals and went on to work with Apollo Hospitals, Bhubaneswar, as DGM Operations, Quality & Research. She has set new benchmarks in delivering responsive and qualitative healthcare and helping SUMUM grow phenomenally and garner accolades, including the NABH accreditation

Valedictory Session

Minister for Rural Development Pritiranjan Ghadai will be the Chief Guest and Vice President and Unit Head of AMRI Hospitals, Bhubaneswar, Nilanjana Mukherjee will be Guest of Honour of the closing ceremony.

Ghadai is among the fresh faces recently inducted into the Naveen Patnaik ministry. He represents Sukinda assembly constituency.

Vice President and Unit Head of AMRI Hospitals limited in Bhubaneswar, Ms Mukherjee started her career in the hotel Industry with Taj Group of Hotels. She has also worked with groups like Apollo and Columbia Asia apart from AMRI in different areas and locations. She is currently the Unit Head at AMRI hospitals, which she joined in 2015 as General Manager, and has been instrumental in its growth from 30 beds to 400 beds hospital.

Panelists – Epidemics are here to stay: The way ahead

Dr Niroj Kumar Mishra

Dr Niroj Kumar Mishra, a well-known Internal Medicine specialist, is currently working at Kar Clinic& Hospital, Bhubaneswar. After MD in Medicine from SCB Medical College, Cuttack, in 1986, he worked as a consultant at Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi. He was part of the medical team of the Prime Minister of India for 3 years.

Dr Jayanta Kumar Panda

Dr J K Panda is the technical spokesperson of Odisha’s Health & Family Welfare department and Head of Department of Medicine, SCB Medical College, Cuttack He pursued an MBBS from VSS Medical College, Burla, and did his MD in Medicine MKCG, Medical College, Berhampur. He is a principal investigator of International and National trials and a working core group member of the Recommendation for adult immunization consensus in Asia pacific region.

Dr Pradipta Sekhar Patra

Dr Patra is the Professor and HOD, Department of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, IMS and SUM Hospital. He did his MBBS from SCB Medical College, Cuttack, and super specialisation in clinical immunology and rheumatology at Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences at Lucknow in 2012.

A noted medical practitioner of Odisha, Dr Patra shouldered key responsibilities during the three waves of COVID by handling hundreds of patients at SUM Hospital.

Panelists – ‘Cancer is beatable: The Dostarlimab hope’

Dr Krupasindhu Panda

Dr Krupasindhu Panda is one of Odisha’s senior surgical oncologists. He has undergone special training from multiple prestigious institutes in Mumbai, Delhi and MSKCC, New York, and was awarded the Diwaliben Mohanlal fellowship for training in the USA. He has received many national & international awards, including the Global Achiever’s Award on Health Excellence – 2014 (Dubai) and Asia Pacific Achiever’s Award – 2014 (Tashkent), for his work on cancer care. His book, “Hand Book of Oncology”, is a preferred book for medical students and practitioners.

Dr Madhabananda Kar

Dr Madhabananda Kar is heading the Department of Surgical Oncology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneswar, since 2016.

Besides the core degrees of MBBS from SCB Medical College, Cuttack, in 1992 and Master in Surgery (MS) from SMS Medical College, Jaipur, in 1997, he has done PhD in Biotechnology from KIIT University in 2020 and Executive Management Programme in Healthcare from Darden Business School in University of Virginia, USA, in 2021.

He is credited with having popularised the onco-surgery concept with a multimodal approach, in Odisha for better cancer care.

Dr Soumya Surath Panda

Dr Soumya Surath Panda is currently working as Professor and HOD, Department Of Medical Oncology, SUM Hospital, Bhubaneswar. He did MBBS and MD in Medicine from SCB Medical College, Cuttack, in 2005 and 2010 respectively and SR (Medical Oncology) from JIPMER in 2011. He completed DM (Medical Oncology) from Cancer Institute, Chennai, in 2014, as a gold medallist.

Dr Panda is credited with starting the Medical Oncology department in IMS and SUM Hospital in 2014

Moderators

Sandeep Sahu

Sandeep Sahu is a senior Bhubaneswar-based journalist with over 35 years of work behind him. He has been reporting for the BBC World Service from Odisha for over 25 years now and for ‘Outlook’ magazine since May 2018. He also writes for a host of national news websites like thequint.com, news18.com, firstpost.com and thefederal.in. He is among very few journalists in the state who writes in three different languages: Odia, Hindi and English.

Balabhadra Rath

A known name in Odisha media, Shri Rath is currently associated with Doordarshan & Odisha Sambad as a newscaster and journalist. He has worked in different news organisations like Samaya, Kalinga TV and News World Odisha. He is also a columnist, litterateur and researcher and won several awards and recognitions during the past decade as a media personality.

Storytelling session on mental health

Prachitara

The journalist-turned-anchor, she is the first and best-known professional storyteller based in Odisha. She recently started her own podcast show on Spotify, Prachi Katha. An AIR artiste and Doordarshan anchor, her articles and poems have also been published in leading Odia magazines.

Owned by Bhubaneswar-based media organization Frontier Media, odishabytes.com (in English) and odishasambad.in (in Odia) are leading 24×7 Independent news websites and have created a niche for themselves within a short period. At the peak of COVID in 2020, Odisha Bytes and Odisha Sambad had successfully organised Lockdown Recipes and Corona Creativity, both online events, and won appreciation from different quarters.