In November 1983, during a Scientific Session in the Ojha Institute of Chest Diseases, about thirty five professionals who had qualified in Chest Diseases and Tuberculosis, decided to form a Chest Society. The gathering was varied with regards to seniority, experiences and positions. There were old people as well as young. There was male predominance but more active female participation as well. There were established colleagues as well as colleagues who had just started. In spite of all these diversities, there was unity to form an organization which could strive for and could protect the interests, rights and privileges of its members as Chest Physicians. It was in mid December i.e., 12th December 1983, that the Convening Committee was formed and work assigned to them. The constitution was prepared and presented in the Committee Meeting on 26th January 1984. The first General Body Meeting was held on 5th February, 1984 in Isphahani Hall, Ojha Institute of Chest Diseases and the 1st Elections were held. Dr Ghazala Ansari was the first elected president of the society. These elected office bearers did a lot of work for the organization of the society, particularly for its registration, for a regular office and for its finances. Mean while with the same feeling an organization was budding from the NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). In March 1987 when Chest Physicians all over Pakistan gathered in Lahore to attend IUATLD conference it was felt and then decided to extend Society from Karachi to all over Pakistan with formation of centre cabinet on rotation every two years for each province. In 1990 in another gathering at Lahore it was decided to transfer this office to NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). First complete cabinet was elected from Peshawar and task was given to have Biennial Conference in the year 1993, and develop a constitution. It was also decided that the provincial chapters will be working at the Province level to have clinical meetings, seminars, symposium etc. Subsequently as the membership expanded and chapters were started at Divisional levels. Hyderabad Chapter , Sukkur Chapter and Larkana Chapter were also established.

First biennial conference was held in Peshawar in November 1993; then centre cabinet was shifted to Sindh and 2nd Biennial Conference was held in November 1995 in Karachi. Third Biennial Conference was held at Quetta in November 1997 by cabinet of Baluchistan and the Cabinet in Punjab held 4th Biennial Conference in November 1999. Now we are preparing for 11th Biennial Conference.

Pakistan Chest Society celebrates various days like world TB day, No Tobacco Day, World Asthma Day, world environment day and had various seminars and press briefings time to time. Pakistan chest society is now mature. It has seen turmoil. But the society is not looking back. We are moving ahead. Various experts are disseminating knowledge on various aspects of chest diseases in electronic media from time to time. And public awareness meeting are held in different schools and clubs. Pakistan chest society Sindh has developed a refresher course on tuberculosis for doctors. Up till now 04 courses have been conducted in various part of Sindh and Punjab.

We hope to continue our joint efforts in improving lung health in Pakistan, fight against tobacco, eliminate tuberculosis, educate health care professionals and public for healthy breathing, and further propagate research in the field of Chest Medicine.

The President