CHICAGO : Dr. S. ‘Jay’ Jayasankar, the outgoing president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) emphasizes the phenomenal rise of the organization from the time when a few doctors met in a basement in Detroit 20 years ago, to the apex body it has now become.

“The premier ethnic medical society in the United States, (it is) the standard bearer for the nearly 1.7 million strong Indian- American community,” said Jayasankar. “The premier ethnic medical society in the United States, (it is) the standard bearer for the nearly 1.7 million strong Indian American community.”

“The organization is held out as a model by the Indian diplomatic community, for the Indian Diaspora anywhere in the world,” he said, and calling AAPI’s founders “true visionaries.”

In an interview with News India-Times, he recounted the progress made by the organization over the many years, including the past year when he was at the helm as president. The accomplishments listed by him included:

o A unified examination, the USMLE, for the licensure of all United States medical graduates (USMG) and international medical graduates (IMGs).

o Prohibition of discrimination, based on medical school of graduation, in federal law.

o Creating a seat for an IMG on the board of the apex body which examines IMGs for fitness to start residency.

o Enabling a section for IMGs at the American Medical Association (AMA), the largest organization of physicians in the U.S.

o Setting up a grievance system within AAPI to help members facing problems. o Creating 13 free clinics in India, helping India in times of disaster and starting research on heart disease among Indians.

“From this solid foundation and standing on the shoulders of giant past leaders, the AAPI is reaching for the sky,” he said. “The AAPI is not waiting to react, but proactively reaching out into the future and shaping it actively.”

He said that a hospital was set toat Kalavad in Gujarat in July, which has been sponsored jointly by his organization and the American India Foundation (AIF), and added that AAPI was planning a 14th free clinic in Jammu and Kashmir.

It is also working with the Gujarat government to create a well-organized disaster preparedness system with help from the State of California. Systems to manage trauma are also being worked on in Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata, he added.

“In advocacy,” Jayasankar said, AAPI won an important precedent-setting victory to help anyone who is improperly sanctioned, following a peer review. He said the organization had filed a friend of the court brief in a peer review —- the process by which physician performance is evaluated --- with the federal court of appeal and won the case. He said that AAPI had also won a huge victory by gaining membership to the American Medical Association (AMA).

“The AAPI resolved 19 cases of individual grievances during the year,” he said with pride. AAPI is working on two public health areas: diabetes and heart disease amongst Indian Americans and domestic violence. “Both these issues are very close to my heart,” Jayasankar said. “Public health, of course, is something I have been working on, but the domestic violence is what I feel about very strongly on a personal basis.”

Doctors, he added, could help significantly to reduce domestic abuses since they are usually the first ones to come across the resultant injuries. On the prevalence of diabetes, he said the ailment was strikingly high among immigrant Asian Indians in the U.S., and the incidence was estimated to be two-to-three fold higher than the general U.S. population.

“Diabetes may be a contributing factor of up to 20 percent of cardiovascular deaths of Asian Indians. The high prevalence of diabetes along with low incidence of traditional risk factors —- smoking, obesity, red meat diet —- in this group makes this a very fertile group to study for valuable insight into this disease,” Jayasankar said. He has also been involved with an AAPI initiative on diabetes among Indian Americans, under the leadership of Dr. Thakor Patel and Dr. Ranjita Misra. The organization’s latest venture is a book, ‘Indian Foods: AAPI’s Guide to Nutrition, Health and Diabetes,’ which was released at its annual convention in Chicago, June 26-30.

“This is one of the first books of such quality written by a panel of outstanding dietitians of Indian origin in the U.S., led by Padmini Balagopal and Rita Batheja,” he said. The AAPI has also commissioned a task force to write its history.

Jayasankar called it an “honor” to have led the organization. “I have learned so much from all the leaders of AAPI and from my visits to our member organizations across the country —- about 25 of them.... This will be my fondest memory.”