Bradley A. Connor Inaugurated as President; Prativa Pandey is chosen President-elect
Three New Counselors Elected

Bradley Connor, MD (USA) was inaugurated as the seventh president of ISTM at the organization’s May meeting in New York. (Brad’s bio and mission statements appeared in the previous issue (March/April 2003) of NewsShare and are available on the ISTM website. Written copies of NewsShare are also available from the ISTM office.)

Prativa Pandey, MD (Nepal) was chosen president-elect in the recently held election. She will be inaugurated as the Society’s eighth president at CISTM9, in 2005, in Lisbon Portugal, when Brad ends his term.

In the same election, three new counselors were chosen: Peter Leggat (Australia), Kevin Kain (Canada) and Eli Schwartz (Israel). Kevin and Elie will serve four-year terms. Peter will serve a two-year term. Generally, only two counselors are chosen, but a third was necessary to complete Prativa’s term, as she now rises from counselor to president-elect. Peter received the third most ballots.

This election of Prativa marks several milestones in the history of the ISTM. Prativa will be the first woman, the first person from outside Europe/North America, and the first person from Asia to serve as chief executive officer of the Society. Also, the new counselors further widen the geographical representation of the executive board to Australia, Canada, Israel, and the United Kingdom,

"I am sure that Prativa will be an active and dynamic President, especially in bringing the voice of those members outside Europe and North America to our Society," said outgoing president Louis Loutan (Switzerland).

Prativa is the Medical Director of the CIWEC Clinic Travel Medicine Center in Kathmandu, Nepal, a clinic that is well known internationally for excellence in travel medicine, providing clinical practice, research and training of residents. The patient population at the Clinic comes from all over the world.

Prativa is board certified in internal medicine in the United States. She practiced internal medicine for 10 years in Boston where she was associated with Beth Israel Hospital and served as a clinical instructor of medicine at the Harvard University School of Medicine. She returned to Nepal in 1993 and joined the CIWEC Clinic. Her experience in designing and carrying out research in a clinic setting will help steer the priorities of the ISTM.

She has served a 3-month volunteer season at the Himalayan Rescue Association’s high altitude clinic near the base of Mt. Everest, is active in several Nepalese medical organizations, and is currently the President of the Nepal chapter of the America Nepal Medical Foundation. The Foundation strives to improve medical education in Nepal.

At ISTM, Prativa was elected a counselor in 2001. She was a member of the committee that prepared the first certificate of knowledge examination and helped make the CIWEC Clinic one of the main destination travel medicine centers linked to the GeoSentinel program.