When medical conferences become an “ Edutainment Industry ” the specialty of Cardiology leads from front !

Recently , I received two e-mail invite for two major conferences one in India other in Europe. Once upon a time, in 1990s we as fellows used to attend these conference for Rs 1000 (15 Euros/Dollors). Now it is 50-75(5000-7500%times increased) Even few years ago it was affordable. I don’t know how many of us can think to attend such conferences. Definitely not me. What prevents these guys to keep the cost nominal. Certainly, Inflation is not the reason. Air tickets and hotel room tariffs has just raised 50-100%.over the same period if you look closely into the above menu card, Indian tariffs would tell a crazy story .When global purchasing power parity ratio is applied, Rs50000 will be equal to approximately 6000 Euros (*Factor of 8 for each Dollar). Which in realty, fix this Indian conference cost, at a true equivalence of 4.8 Lakhs. Final message My professor used to say, teaching and learning should be spontaneous never be a commodity. Can you guess who is fixing these conference fees beyond the reach of a lay student & doctor ? Some of you might know the true reason. The regulatory bodies are just helpless. There is a direct link between MBBS seats costing 1 crore in our country , to these jacked up conference costs. The moment greed enters, we become a party to un-professional scheme of things, however good is our expertise and knowledge . There is a joke going on in India, if you find one cardiologist who pays the registration fees f...
Source: Dr.S.Venkatesan MD - Category: Cardiology Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs