Dear IANAGH family,

I am honored to be installed as the 14th President of Indian Nurses Association of Greater Houston. In the next 2 years we would like to create memories that will last a lifetime.

Nurses all over the world started 2020 with lot of excitement as the World Health organization declared 2020 as the International yr of the nurse and Midwife to honor Florence Nightingale’s 200th birth anniversary. However due to the unprecedented Covid-19 Pandemic nurses globally faced lot of challenges, stress and anxieties, but we nurses rose above as real time heroes through our courageous work and supreme sacrifice. Today we remember all our fallen heroes who lost their life in the fight against COVID-19. Now more than ever before in history — nurses are being appreciated and applauded. We survived 2020, even though the pandemic still exists, the invention of COVID vaccine gives us a new hope for better future.

IANAGH was formed in 1994 by few visionary leaders now has 500 members. What an achievement! We have a vision for this organization. We need more leaders from this organization. We have many but we need more. We have clinical nurses, nurse case managers, Educators. NPs. CRNAs. We are very proud of our members. IANAGH will provide the educational opportunities and leadership retreat for our members for their professional and personal growth. During the last APN educational webinar, a group of our members provided an overview of their research activities which motivated many of our young nurses. That excited me.

 We have done lot of community activities even during the pandemic time.We made more than 1000 of homemade mask with CDC criteria , We distributed N 95 mask to nursing home and VA hospital.  Our members participated in swab drive to find the matching stem cell donor to save life. We also did participate in Star of hope Holiday donations, virtual holiday celebration, Haiti toy drive., donations. We will continue and exceed in all these activities. We hope with kindness and professional skills we can achieve the new heights of excellence.

Along with Ms. Kallel I remember all the previous presidents who worked enormously to uphold the organization to the current level. They all fulfilled the statement by Robin Sharma, “Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, influence, and inspiration.”

People cannot survive or succeed in life by not giving or receiving assistance from other people. As someone said, “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle”, if you assist someone you lose nothing but instead you are spreading the light. Let’s be the candle in our family, in our workplace and in our community. And this is answer to whoever ask me what you get to be in this organization.

As Henry Ford said, “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” This is the legacy of the Indian American Nurses Association of Greater Houston.

I would like to thank GOD for this opportunity, my excellent Executive Board team and committee chairs for walking alongside me to make IANAGH shine.

Thank you,
Dr. Anumol Thomas