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CAPP: A glimpse of the past by Dr Rajat Mukherjee

I have the dubious distinction of being one of the two surviving founder members of CAPP, the other being Dr Sanjay Lahiri who lives across the oceans in the new world. Therefore, I was the one, chosen by Dr Srabani Chakrabarti, to write a short history of CAPP. She gave this task to me a few months back. My apologies for the delay which was primarily because I was enjoying a roller coaster ride in professional life and to borrow from Ian Fleming “I felt like a kite dancing in a hurricane”. I am sorry for the digression which was primarily to explain the delay and to warn you about some of the perils of our profession.

I will not be able to begin at the beginning but can take you all from nearly the beginning till present days. I am not aware of the exact date, but it all began in 1986 when a group of eminent Pathologists of Calcutta who had their own laboratories decided that it will be in everyone’s interest to be together and support each other in technical as well as commercial issues encountered in the practice of laboratory medicine in this city, and CAPP had an informal beginning. Late Dr Padma Lahiri was the first president and Late Dr Tushar Maitra was the first secretary. The leadership team consisted of Dr Subir Datta, Dr Padma Lahiri, Dr Tushar Moitra, Dr D.J. Banerjee, Dr Ashim Mukherjee, Dr Saxena, Dr K.K. Thakkar, Dr G.C. Pal, Dr R.N. Ghosh, and some others. The primary motto was that we will support each other, and no one should bad mouth anyone either to patients or to referring physicians. If anyone had an issue against another fellow pathologist, it was expected that they would discuss and settle it mutually.

We used to meet once a month in Calcutta Club on any suitable Friday afternoon for lunch meeting. There was a grand buffet lunch on Fridays, those days, the spreads were simply awesome and for me the food was as attractive as the opportunity to be with those stalwarts who led the practice of laboratory medicine in this city.

The discussions centered around quality related discussion for measurable lab tests. I remember us discussing issues related to correctness of Hemoglobin estimation. Some of my younger friends will be smiling but believe me that this was quite a challenge. The standards supplied by companies selling Drabkin’s solution were more often than not either wrong or deteriorated very quickly. It was decided that the group will make its own standard and that was done, using a sensitive and high end spectrophotometer, and millimolar extinction coefficient for Hemoglobin (Dacie Lewis) we made our own standard, which was shared amongst us all. Subsequently hemoglobin results of all the participating labs had excellent concordance, the year was 1986 ! Another activity that was undertaken was assessment of kits, late Dr Ashim Mukherjee used to do this and share his findings with all of us. Members came out in strong support in case a fellow member ran into legal hassles, I remember one of our members had a court case against a cytology report, some senior members took the trouble of attending court hearings as expert witness and the case got dismissed. The camaraderie amongst all of us was very strong. It was one big family, the bigger the family the more the differences of opinion. CAPP had, had its fair share of petty and not so petty differences, but all these got resolved amicably.

মাঝে মাঝে বটে ছিঁরেছিল তার, তাই নিয়ে কেবা করে হাহাকার —
সুর তবু লেগেছিল বারে বার, মনে পড়ে তাই আজি ॥ 

CAPP got registered under the societies act in the year 1997 and that happened largely due to the initiatives of Dr Tushar Maitra. Dr Maitra’s son, who is a lawyer, helped CAPP with the entire process or rather he did for CAPP without any fees. We will forever remain grateful to him for this. Similarly, the beautiful CAPP logo was designed by Dr Mala Banerjee’s daughter, Ms Sananda Banerjee, who is an architect with a post graduate degree in design from NID Ahmedabad, again that was done without any fees. We are collectively indebted to her for the wonderful logo that says it all.

There were very few pathologists owned laboratories in those days, consequently CAPP membership became static, it was then that CAPP decided to open its doors to all laboratory medicine doctors provided they were working in private laboratories, Government doctors who were legally in private practice were also welcomed. I cannot recollect the year, but it was probably 2001 or 2002.

The first president of CAPP was Dr Padma Lahiri and after it was registered Prof Subir Datta was the president. That committee consisted of the following members Vice President Dr T.K. Maitra. Secretary Dr Rajat Mukherjee, Jt. Secretary Dr Utpal Goswami, Treasurer Dr Jyotsna Basu , Jt. Treasurer Dr T.K. Ghosh. Executive members Dr Ashim Mukherjee, Dr Raj Vajpeyi , and Lt Gen A.K. Banerjee. Dr Padma Lahiri was the immediate past president.

During the years 2001 to 2003 , Dr T.K. Maitra was president and Dr D.J. Banerjee was the vice president. My self and Dr Jyotsna continued as secretary and Jt. Secretary. Dr Shilaj became treasurer with Dr Shravasti Roy was Jt. Treasurer. Gen A.K. Banerjee, Dr K.K. Thakkar and Dr Amar Bhattacharjee were in the executive committee with Prof Subir Datta as immediate past president. I do have the details of subsequent committees, but the sequence of past presidents was probably like this. Dr D.J. Banerjee succeeded Dr Tushar Maitra, followed by Dr Asim Banerjee and later by myself (Dr. Rajat Mukherjee). Dr Jyotsna Basu opted out of presidentship. The subsequent presidents were Dr T.K. Ghosh, Dr Mala Banerjee and Dr Shravasti Roy followed by Dr Jyothi Chowdhury. I continued to serve CAPP as secretary during the term of Dr T.K. Ghosh and Dr Mala Banerjee. Dr Mala Banerjee and I decided to retire from the executive committee after Dr Shravasti Roy took over, the show was for the next generation to carry forward.

There was lull in the activities of CAPP for some time and because of that the accounts got messed up. Dr Mala Banerjee took up the cudgels with two able assistants Dr Shravasti Roy and Dr Bhaskar Narayan Choudhuri it was all sorted out. The contribution of Dr Bhaskar in sorting out those issues was noteworthy. Dr Sanghamitra Mukherjee contributed a lot to the smooth running of the association.

Notable events include AIPNA and CAPP Surgical pathology conference in 2004 under the leadership of Dr Sudipta Roy as organizing secretary. Prof Subir Datta and Lt Gen A. K. Banerjee led the fund raising drive, the team saved a lot of money for CAPP, which was the first major break for us. Dr T.K. Ghosh and Dr Mala Banerjee conducted a CAPPCON each followed by Dr Subhra Dhar. All these events helped to augment CAPP assets.

Another notable exercise was 15189 training programs which proved to be an immense success. All the assessors contributed immensely to the success of this program, to name a few Dr T.K. Ghosh, Dr Bhaskar, Dr Indranil Roy, Dr Susruta, Dr Sanghamitra, Dr Shravasti Roy, Dr Debes Roy, Dr Sugat Sanyal, Dr S.M. Nadeem, Dr Palash Kr. Mandal and myself.

It is very satisfying to see that CAPP is growing from strength to strength and is probably the best medical association in town. The executive committee as well as the members are very active and contribute a lot to CAPP, notable among them are Dr Sayeed Nadeem, Dr Susruta Sen, Dr Subhra Dhar, Dr Barnik Chowdhury, Dr Sukanta Chakraborty, Dr Anuradha Ghosh and the entire executive committee. The steering of CAPP is currently in the hands of Dr Jyothi and Dr Palash and they are doing great work. Dr Sabitri Sanyal, Col (Dr) Deepak Mishra and Dr Pradip Mitra made significant value addition to all activities of CAPP. All members contributed to the sustained growth of CAPP, some visibly, others from behind the scenes.

My best wishes and regards to all of you and let us remember those who are no longer with us, it was they who built this CAPP for us to nourish.