The 9th Annual Transplant Coordinators’ Conference was organised by MOHAN Foundation and the National Association of Transplant Coordinators (NATCO) under the aegis of the Indian Society of Organ Transplantation (ISOT) and National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) on 8th & 9th October 2016 at Hotel Hyatt, Chandigarh. It was supported by the Tata Education and Development Trust.

The NATCO conference inauguration was graced by Dr. Raj Kumar Sharma, President ISOT, Dr. Narayan Prasad, Secretary, ISOT, Prof. Dr. Vimal Bhandari, Director, National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO), Prof. K. L. Gupta, Chairman, ISOTCON 2016, Prof. H. S Kohli, Organizing Secretary, ISOTCON 2016, Dr. Vipin Koushal, Nodal Officer, Regional Organ & Tissue Transplant Organization (ROTTO), Chandigarh, Dr. Dale Gardiner, National Deputy Clinical Lead for Organ Donation, NHS Blood and Transplant, UK, Dr. Anil Chandraker, President, American Society of Transplantation and Dr. Sunil Shroff, Managing Trustee, MOHAN Foundation.

This was followed by the Swamy Narayan Memorial Lecture by Dr. Dale Gardiner on “Achieving moral balance in organ donation – Clinical decisions”. Dr. Dale Gardiner’s lecture addressed many pertinent points related to the ethics of organ donation. He emphasised that talking about organ donation was part of good end of life care and that families should be given the opportunity to say ‘Yes’. He then went on to speak about how to practise objective ethics and developing ethics as a skill by using the moral balance, i.e., balancing out the four principles of medical ethics – Beneficence, Non-maleficence, Autonomy and Justice.

The conference covered a series of interesting topics which were presented by excellent speakers from across the country and abroad.

Delegates were given the opportunity to present their abstracts through the Free paper and poster session. Ms. Sunayana Singh from ORGAN India won the Best Free Paper Award for her paper on “Transplant Guide – An Aid to Organ Transplants” along with Mr. Aneesh P V from Kerala Network for Organ Sharing for his paper on “A Study to Improvise the Transparency of Organ Allocation System in Kerala.” Ms. Saryu D Madra from Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER) was awarded the Best Poster award for her poster on “Media as a Catalyst for Community Engagement in Organ Donation.” Fortis Memorial Research Institute was awarded the Best Video for Promoting Organ Donation. The awards carry a certificate and a cash prize of Rs. 2000/-.

Every year the Swamy Narayan Best Transplant Coordinator Award is presented to transplant coordinators who excel in their profession. The award carries a certificate and a cash prize of Rs.5000/-. This year the award was shared by Mrs. Surekha Shantanu Joshi from Grant Medical Foundation Ruby Hall Clinic, Pune and Mr. Navdeep Bansal from PGIMER, Chandigarh.