MINUTES OF THE

AMERICA NEPAL MEDICAL FOUNDATION

ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MEMBERS

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

10:15AM, SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 2004

 

Board Member Attendees

Gaury Adhikary	Bob Gerzoff	Subarna Pradhan
Donald Blair	Ian Macmillan	Fred Shepardson
Bill Brewster	Hillary Liss	Julia Shepardson
Khagendra Chetry	Dick Katzman	Brendan Thomson
Bhargab Dixit	Sanjaya Khanal	Libby Wilson
Shiva Gautam	Janak Koirala

 

Member Attendees

Edith Bacon	Anne M. Johnson	Geoff Tabin
Allison Clark Brustin	Tara Niraula	Mark Zimmerman
Marvin Brustin	Binod Shah
Rekha Hamal Chetry	Robert Suskind

 

Non-Member Attendees

Geraldine Alpert	Yog Gautam	Ruma Rajbhandari
Larry Alpert	Stacey Greenebaum	Brikha Shrestha
Edward Bartlett	Robert W. Hamill	Prem Timsima
Pradeep Bista	Job C. Heintz	Ashish Upadhyay
Patrick G. Curley	Dibesh Karmacharya	Charlie Wykoff
Bharati Gautam	Umesh Koirala
Min Gautam	Suman Lamsal

 

Minutes

Following the Keynote Address by Dr. Mark Zimmerman and talks by Dr. Geoff Tabin and Prem Timsina, Sanjaya Khanal thanked the speakers for the work they’ve done in Nepal and called the meeting to order at 10:40am.

1. Reports:

• Chairperson’s Report
• Executive Director & Treasurer’s Report
• 2003 Projects
  • Bir Hospital Renal Histopathology
  • HRDC Anesthesia Machine
  • HealthNet
  • KUMS Management Training

In discussion it was generally agreed that it would be more practical for ANMF to support training in countries neighboring Nepal rather than in America. It was also agreed that it is preferable for America based doctors to conduct training in Nepal so that training by few could reach many.

• 2004 Projects
  • Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital Generator for Operating Theater
  • Speech Therapy Training for Cleft Palate Patients
  • Patan Hospital Echocardiography Training
  • Other Projects including Ilam Hospital and Jharkot Library
• ANMF/ Nepal Report PowerPoint Presentation – Aruna Pant
• Continuing Medical Education

The ANMF goal was reemphasized that supported projects should have a medical education component and be for not for profit institutions.

Reports will be posted in the Annual Conference section of the ANMF website at www.anmf.net.

The morning session adjourned for lunch at 12:30pm.
 

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After a successful morning session and lunch, afternoon session began at 1:30pm.

Reports (continued):

• Health Science University (HSU) – Robert M. Suskind, MD
  Dr. Suskind is a retired Dean of the Chicago School of Medicine, who was visiting Kathmandu in July 2003 where he met Dr. Arjun Karki and helped formulate a plan for HSU. Dr. Suskind has visited Nepal three times since then. He highlighted the vision, concept and challenges of the proposed new university. The main challenges are land, financing, and finalizing the curriculum. The curriculum will be Problem Based Learning and the proposed model is the Calgary model. He also answered questions raised by the audience. He requested that ANMF look into this project very meticulously and critically and give constructive feedback to him, Arjun or Mark Zimmerman.

2. Committee Reports

• Membership- Bhargab Dixit, MD - Gave brief report about the current ANMF membership status. There were 12 new members this year, 47 renewals from existing members and 1 new life member, the total life member are 15. Total number of active members in good standing is 74.
• Outreach- Don Blair, MD - Dr. Blair presented the rough draft of an outreach program. First task is to finalize the power point presentation about Nepal in general, the health care system, and about ANMF past and future activities. He asked all the members and attendees to send him by email materials (mainly pictures) about Nepal that can be included in the presentation. It was decided that the outreach committee, fund raising committee and membership committee will co-ordinate with each other to prepare the final draft.
• Fund raising- Gaury Adhikary, MD - Mr. Marvin Brustin, Honorary Consul of Nepal Chicago was invited to join the ANMF Board. He accepted the offer and assured all the members, to help any way he can. Dr. Adhikary will coordinate with him, outreach committee, and membership committee to run different programs this year.
• Scholarship- Hillary Liss, MD - $2500 was allocated for the scholarship program last year, no money was utilized. As all the funds directed to KUMS are on hold, there was no new policy to utilize the scholarship funds. She proposed to expand the scholarship program to other medical schools, nursing schools, and health care technicians. No final decision was made in this regard.
• Web site- Fred Shepardson, PhD - Presented current ANMF web site status and new additions. The two important new additions were capability to make online donations and online applications for projects. He asked for suggestions, materials be sent to him that he will edit and include in our website.
• Education material- Janak Koirala, MD - As Sunil Sharma, educational materials coordinator, was absent Dr. Koirala gave brief update about shipment method utilized in the past like M-Bag, etc. Over the years, the ANMF Education Material Committee has concluded that electronic media is a more efficient way to provide education support to Nepal.
• Budget- Julia Shepardson - Presented the 2004/2005 budget and asked all the members to look at the print-out included in the meeting package. The budget is to be approved in the Sunday morning session.
• Other business- Sanjay Khanal, MD - Requests for new 2005 projects have already been submitted-
  • Managing Genital prolapse in rural Nepal by Dr. Ganesh Dangal.
  • Dialyser reprocesser for kidney center - Dr. Rishi Kafle
  • Suture material collected for Dr. Shanker Rai
  • Vascular graft - Dr. Bhagawan Koirala

These proposals will be discussed in detail in subsequent Board meetings.

3. Election of Board of Directors:

The following whose terms were expired were re-elected to the ANMF Board for 3 year terms:

• Shiva Gautam
• Subarna Pradhan
• Roshan Shrestha
• Brendan Thomson
• Julia Shepardson

Jim Allen whose term expired was moved to the Advisory Council

The following were elected to 3 year terms as new members of ANMF Board:

• Edward Bartlett
• William Brandt
• Marvin Brustin
• Sachin Mudvari

The Annual Meeting of Members adjourned at 3:45pm.