Emails extracted from the discussion through mailing list:------------------------------------
Anil Pyakuryal/HART Research group wrote on July 25, 2014:Thanks Suresh and others for initiating such a good work. Best wishes.
- Anil
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Sagar Pokhrel wrote on July 25, 2014:I glad to meet Nepalese medical physicist in AAPM meeting. I am also one looking for organization before starting my grad school. This would help a lot for perspective medical physics student. NMPANA and current nominations are perfect and we will support them to uplift this organization to next level.
Thank You
Sagar Pokhrel
Grad Student
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
Research Student
Baylor Scott n White
Temple, TX
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Sunil Sharma wrote on July 25, 2014:Dear all
I thank everyone who initiated NMPANA. I assure all the support from my side to move this organization.
Thanks,
Sunil Sharma PhD, DABR
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Surendra Prajapati wrote on July 25, 2014:Dear all,
First of all, I thank Suresh for a well written minute from the meeting at AAPM.
I would like to add couple more aim for organization (these could also be incorporated in the previous aims).
1. Help to uplift medical physics education, clinical practice and research on radiation oncology in Nepal.
2. Work together with current medical physics practitioners in Nepal.
3. Raise awareness of radiation, and its use in cancer treatment, and role of medical physicists to the generation population in Nepal.
I also accept my nomination for the treasurer position; and I will also research on being a liaison to reach out other organizations to support our organization.
I appreciate your support as well as any suggestions that you might have.
Thank you again!
Jay Nepal
Surendra Prajapati
PhD Candidate
Department of Medical Physics
University of Wisconsin-Madison
PS. Lets update our google doc for Medical Physicists in North America.
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Bishnu Thapa wrote on July 25, 2014:Dear all,
Great idea. I hope that it will help for an effective networking among Nepalese Medical Physicists. I fully support the organization.
~Bishnu Thapa
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Damodar Pokhrel wrote on July 25, 2014:Absolutely fantastic work!
First of all, I would like to purpose Dr. Sunil Sharma, Ph.D., for the post of vice-president.
In my opinion, without financial support it will be very difficult to achieve the goals outlined in the meeting minutes. May be we should start thinking about creating membership in our organization and start contributing financially, such as membership fee in the beginning.
Reaching out other organizations (Surendra Jee is doing already) to support our organization is one of the best ideas to support this organization academically as well as financially. May be we should reach out to the vendors in future, as well!
Thank you all who attended this year aapm annual meeting (I was not able to go) and initiated to create this organization. In long run, it will definitely help bringing all Nepali medical physicists closer and eventually achieve those goals outlined in the meeting minutes and more.
Special thanks to Suresh Jee for nicely laying out meeting minutes and future goals.
Thanks.
Damodar
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Raja Panta wrote on July 26, 2014:Hi all,
This is an excellent initiation. I fully support for this. Let me know if I could be any help on it. We can open up a Facebook account in the name of NMPANA and connect our Nepalese Medical Physicists. I am wondering if following supports are feasible to help Medical Physics community back in Nepal:
1) donating books, study materials, spared radiation equipments (eg. dosimetry tools) etc
2) delivering presentations/lectures at Nepalese institutions when we visit Nepal
3) training of Nepalese Medical Physicists in our institution/hospital etc
cheers,
Raj
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Prakash Aryal wrote on July 27, 2014:Dear All, Thank you very much for your enthusiasm and dedication to medical physics community. Also, special thanks goes to Suresh Rana and Surendra Prajapati for initiating to form the Nepali medical physics organization in North America. It was a great time meeting you all at AAPM meeting. Although some of you could not make to the meeting, it was very productive and innovative to some extent.
Thanks Suresh bhai for drafting the minutes and goals of our meeting at Austin. Similarly, thanks goes to Surendra bhai for initially initiating this. The feedback and comments made from all of you are greatly appreciated. I also want to propose Mr. Kalyan Adhikari for the Vice-president position. We, therefore, will have two vice presidents in our organization.
To my end I accept my nomination as a president of this organization.
Again thank you all for willing to support this association.
Let us agree with the name of the organization or propose new. Once it finalized with the name of the organization and its executive members we have to register and move forward for drafting the constitution of the organization.
Until then,
Yours,
Prakash Aryal, PhD, DABR
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Bhojraj Gautam wrote on July 25, 2014:Excellent initiation and thank you all for your time and effort. I would support from my side to move forward.
Bhoj R Gautam Ph. D.
Medical Physicist
Allentown PA
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Anil Pyakuryal wrote on July 28, 2014:Dear all,
Better to have a person representative from our Northern Border in key executives too as we discussed. thanks.
-Anil
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Prakash Aryal wrote on July 28, 2014:I meant to propose Mr. Kalyan Adhikary in addition to Sunil K. Sharma, PhD for vice president position. Both candidates are excellent in my opinion.
I agree suggestion from Anil Pyakurel, PhD. Please propose a person and the appropriate position.
Thank you again for actively participating in this good cause.
Prakash Aryal, PhD, DABR
Director of brachytherapy physics
Department of Radiation Medicine
Markey Cancer Center
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Suresh Rana wrote on July 28, 2014:All,
I think it will be a good idea to create a forum to take these discussions over there. Since we are in the process of forming an organization, I can imagine that lots of discussions will be involved during this process. It may be difficult for most of us to go through all the emails in the future. There are some free forum services, and I will try to get one for our temporary use until we get an official site get running. I will keep you all posted.
On a different note- I like the idea of having two vice-presidents, and I hope both the candidates (Sunil Sharma and Kalyan Adhikari) will be willing to serve as VPs. Thank you Prakash Dai for this idea.
Thanks.
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Shailendra Shukla wrote on July 28, 2014:I agree Suresh. Also could you please change my e-mail to the personal one: Shukla.shukla1(at)gmail.com? It is getting hard to keep up with al these interesting e-mails mixed with official business.
BTW, excellent piece of information on the formation of the association in Austin. Thanks.
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Gopal Subedi wrote on July 28, 2014:Dear all,
Namaste!
Thank you for keeping me in the loop. I am a recent graduate from Purdue University, still in the process of exploring job opportunities. I was born in Bhutan, but was brought up in Nepal, where I also did my schooling until High School.
Opening of an association is a great initiative, and it will definitely have positive impact for healthcare aspects in Nepal in the long run. Congratulations to everyone involved in initiating the idea. Not sure how are the by-laws going to be drafted, and that if having a Nepali citizenship would be a requirement to be a member; but as a person of Nepali origin who takes deep interest in the wellbeing of Nepal, I would be very interested in being a part of it. Just thought it would be worthwhile to bring this up while still in the planning phase. I have met a few members in this group, including Nava Raj dai and Bhoj dai, who know me quite well.
Congratulations, and thank you for including me in the email circulation. I am still looking for a job and in the very early phase of my career, but I would be happy to provide inputs when appropriate.
Thank you,
Gopal Subedi, MS
Philadelphia
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Shyam Pokharel wrote on July 28, 2014:Hi all,
I Just happened to open all these string of emails and extremely happy to know that finally we Nepalese medical physicists have a critical mass and enthusiastic to get organized. I was in week long vacation last week. I thought this long back but mass was critically small. It appears that we have grown up significantly now. I did not attend the AAPM meeting this year in favor of ASTRO meeting as it is in California ( personal preference for the location). It appeared that a quiet few people attended the meeting. I really appreciate initiation taken by Suresh and Surendra. These young boys have a lot of potential and I hope we seniors have some experiences in this field. Let these boys come up with the draft of organizational structure and bylaws etc. Then we will move forward with the website, registration of non profit organization etc. I will always be ready to support for initial start up fund or any other supports.
Thanks
Shyam Pokharel, MS PHD DABR
Senior Physicist
21st Century Oncology
Naples FL
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Surendra Prajapati wrote on July 28, 2014:Suresh,
I think a blog or google group (or even facebook page) to get started with discussion would be appropriate.
We have Moti dai (from Canada) in the board. We can definitely add more if anyone is interested.
I also support Prakash dai's idea to have two VPs, and hopefully they will accept the nomination.
Thank you.
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Suresh Rana wrote on July 28, 2014:Surendra,
Would you like to create a blog or google group for the discussions? I am not familiar with these. You can take a lead on that. Thanks.
If you guys are okay using the forum, I can work on that.
Let's not do the Facebook at this time. I am not allowed to use Facebook at my work place. Some other companies/institutions may also have policy against using FaceBook at the work environment. Keeping job is also important
-Suresh
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Surendra Prajapati wrote on July 28, 2014:Suresh,
Yes, forum is the best option.
Let's do that
Thanks,
surendra
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Paras Tiwari wrote on July 28, 2014:Hello All,
Thank you for putting me in loop and it's a great initiative to start Medical Physicist organization. It was nice meeting with all of you in AAPM.
Thank You,
Paras
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Shailendra Shukla wrote on July 28, 2014:It was great to meet so many of young Nepali medical physicists in Austin. I was the only person from Nepal within the AAPM community for many years. After my Ph. D in Physics I took a post-doctoral Fellowship at UCLA in Medical Physics in 1984; up to that point I had no idea of what “Medical Physics” was. The term “Medical Physics” itself was slightly different then with same person doing therapy, diagnostic, nuclear and radiation safety. MRI was just starting in the clinics. After the post-doc, I chose diagnostic (mostly nuclear), and radiation safety as my career.
In a series of lectures I gave in 1999 I did try to encourage Tribhuwan University students to try for scholarships in the USA in Physics and Medical Physics. I tried to generate awareness to Nepali medical practitioners (spent a 1 month at TUTH) and the then RONAST members about the need for radiation safety and equipment and image quality control. I talked to the Health Minister and published an article in Kathmandu Post regarding the need to establish radiation regulations in Nepal. Unfortunately I don’t think I was much successful in changing the mind of many,
Anyway I don’t want to bore you with my history, although that comes with age! I was really surprised to meet more than ten of you in Austin and now with these e-mails it seems we are almost thirty or so in the field of medical physics. It is certainly time to establish an association with the ultimate goals of helping each other and Nepal. Noble endeavor indeed. Congratulations.
Shailendra Shukla, Ph.D
VA Medical Center and University of Florida
Gainesville, FL
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Damodar Pokhrel wrote on July 28, 2014:Forum will be good, Thanks dp
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Anil Pyakuryal/HART Research Group wrote on July 28, 2014:Thanks Shukla Sir,
Indeed you were our motivation in Nepal for study abroad back in 2000 era.
We are really glad to have your continuous support to our community in this part of the world too. Thanks
-AP
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Nava Raj Paudel wrote on July 28, 2014:Dear all,
Thank you all for the initiation as well as for taking part in the discussion.
For now, let me address the point raised by Gopal bhai. To my understanding, this organization intends to incorporate all the Medical Physicists with Nepalese origin. It does not matter whether our grandparents adopted a different citizenship or did/do we.
Please feel free to post if anyone has a different opinion.
Sincerely,
Nava
