P. Raghu Ram, director of KIMS-Ushalakshmi Centre for Breast Diseases here, has been elected the president of Association of Surgeons of India (ASI), considered the largest surgeons’ organisation in the Asia Pacific region that represents the fraternity across India.
According to a press release, the election saw highest ever polling in the history of ASI elections. Dr. Raghu Ram, a Padma Shri and B.C. Roy national awardee, has become one of the youngest surgeons in the country to be elected to the post of president of the association.
Arvind Kumar, who acted as the chief election officer, declared the results on Friday after the counting process was completed at ASI headquarters in Chennai. Dr. Raghu Ram has polled 4,450 votes compared to 2,621 votes polled by the other contestant, Tamonas Chaudhuri, from Kolkata.
Established in 1938, the ASI is widely considered to be the “voice for surgery” in India. Started with 112 members, the association has grown into the largest surgical association in the Asia Pacific region and the second largest in the world after the American College of Surgeons.
Dr. Raghu Ram, the immediate past president of the Association of Breast Surgeons of India, has excelled all along in his surgical career spanning over 23 years. He is instrumental in implementing the South Asia’s largest population-based breast cancer screening programme in partnership with the governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh across 4,000 villages since 2012 and reaching out to over two lakh underprivileged women.
