India needs sporting culture to excel: Abhinav Bindra

The two-day medical conference 'Empower Physicians with International Practices in advanced Diabetes Care' concluded here on Sunday with a motivational keynote by Olympian Abhinav Bindra, who stressed the role of sports.

Bindra shared his life's journey and how sports changed his outlook towards life with various facets of life and character that helped him develop better self-respect, self-discipline, and self-confidence, and more importantly overcome the fear of failure.

One learns to listen to one's coach and other experts and self-analyse one's strengths and weaknesses, and hone the ability to stay in the moment, focussed and determined, through regular practice, he said, adding that everyone should try to be the best and get better than yesterday.

Bindra responded to doctors' queries on stress, and anxiousness by saying all conflicts emerge within and it is only through the practice of staying focussed on the moment to accomplish "what one wants to do can make a difference".

Asked about the absence of more sportspeople winning medals for the country, he said that "we need to develop a culture of sports with everyone happily participating in games joyfully, and celebrating it, which would encourage more youth to excel for better performance".

Bindra, along with EPIC's organising chairman Sanjay Kalra and secretary Sachin Mittal, conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award on two stalwarts in the field of endocrinology, B.S. Bhatia and Sarita Bajaj, for their contribution in the field.

Earlier, the medical sessions covered various aspects of diabetic patients, wherein the cardiologists H.K. Bali, Puneet Verma, Rajneesh Mittal, Soumik Goswami, Anil Dhall, Neeraj Bhalla and Dilip Bhalla underlined the need for early detection, prevention and treatment of cardio-renal damage.

Akshata Desai, Gurpreet Singh, Mani Kant Singla, Savita Kapila, J.K. Mokta, and Soham Mukherjee looked at the practical challenges and solutions in the use of insulin for diabetic patients.

The conference concluded with a session on Work-Life balance by ex-IAS, author, and TEDx speaker Vivek Atray, who touched upon physical and mental fitness by advising patients to follow creative pursuits and manage their anger and stress through regular meditation, essential to managing the lifestyle disease like diabetes and obesity.

Mittal said that sensitisation of general practitioners towards newer developments in endocrinology was essential and also how different organs affected by diabetes need to be taken care of at an early stage.