History of AAFS

The surgical fraternity of the Armed Forces has a rich tradition and a proud heritage and has always been actively involved with the ASI. In fact, the first President of the ASI Lt Col K.C. Pandalai was from the Armed Forces. However, because of the nature of the service and frequent transfers, it was often difficult for us to keep abreast of the latest scientific developments in the surgical disciplines. Thus, in order to provide a platform for the Armed Forces surgeons serving in various parts of India and abroad to share their experiences and to synchronize their research and scientific endeavors, the Association of Armed Forces Surgeons (AAFS) was founded in 2001 as the War Surgery section of the ASI.

The Headquarters of the AAFS are located at the Department of Surgery at the Armed Forces Medical College Pune. The President of the AAFS is usually the senior most surgeon serving in the Armed Forces; presently Air Marshal P. Madhusoodanan AVSM, VSM, while the Secretary is the Professor and Head of Department of Surgery; presently Brig R. Katoch VSM.

The AAFS organizes one annual conference at AFMC Pune every year and in addition, the CMEs/Surgical Updates organized by various Command Hospitals and Army Hospital Research and Referral Delhi also incorporate a scientific session dedicated to War Surgery related topics. It also awards the ‘Capt Aditya Misra Memorial award' to the best post graduate resident every year.

The AAFS is also actively represented at the ASICON every year. The highlights of ASICON 2008 being the maiden Maj Gen P.T. Joseph oration which was delivered by Air Marshal P. Madhusoodanan, President AAFS, on 28 Dec on “Renal transplant Armed Forces perspective” and was widely appreciated by the audience. This was followed by a guest lecture on “Management of Burns” by Air Cmde A.K. Behl. The General Body meeting of AAFS was held thereafter under the chairmanship of President AAFS. A symposium on “Abdominal Solid Organ Injuries - Changing Paradigm” was held in the post lunch session wherein all the pertinent issues including non operative management of trauma of solid abdominal organs were discussed by the eminent speakers. In addition, two free paper sessions were also held under the aegis of the AAFS.

Just prior to becoming members of AAFS, the best outgoing resident of surgery is given a cash prize and certificate from the corpus fund contributed by Lt Gen (Retd) G.S. Misra, AVSM, VSM past President AAFS, in honour of his late son Capt Aditya Misra a martyr of Kargil War.

The membership of the association has shown a rapid increase in recent years and it currently has 269 members on its rolls. A newsletter of the association called ‘SCALPEL' was started in 2006 and at present it is being published four times a year. It provides a useful means for surgeons posted in field areas and remote locations to remain abreast with current developments.