Indegene's Continuing Medical Education division, CME Universe, and the Dermatology Department of Bangalore Medical College has launched Dermatology Invited Guest Lecture Series (DIGS) which is a year-long lecture series on dermatology related topics.

Dr P S Prabhakaran, vice chancellor, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences inaugurated the event. The objective of this programme is to update Consultant Dermatologists, Faculty of Medical Colleges and PG Students about current clinical trends in the field of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology. This is the first initiative in the field for providing credible, top quality and relevant continuing medical education in Dermatology via the medium of guest lectures. Dr S Sacchidanand, Professor and Head of the Department, Department of Dermatology, S T D, & Leprosy, Bangalore Medical College, is the Course Director for DIGS (Dermatology Invited Guest Lecture Series).

According to Dr S Sacchidanand, "Continuing Medical Education (CME) is a proprietary system to deliver comprehensive, cost-effective learning with applications for physicians, medical students, pharmaceutical companies, academic medical centres, and healthcare delivery organizations. The DIGS lecture series will be on any of the topics ranging from Clinical Dermatology, Acne and acne form eruptions, fungal infections, HIV, Dermato-surgery, Cosmetology, Dermato-histopathology, and Atopic Dermatitis. The value addition would be the AACME accreditation of the whole programme. The presentation and articles received would be the copy right of DIGS" The first DIGS series will focus on Clinical Dermatology. It consists of a series of 6 Guest Lectures from January 2007 till March 2007, which will be held on the 2nd and 4th Friday of every month at the Seminar Hall of the Department of Dermatology & S T D, Victoria Hospital, from 1.30 PM onwards. The series started with a lecture by Dr S C Rajendran, president of the Bangalore Dermatological Society, which immediately followed the inauguration of DIGS by Dr Prabhakaran.

Dr Sanjay Parikh, Director Indegene Lifesystems Private Limited said, "Since 2000, Indegene has been developing CME programs in partnership with medical associations, teaching institutions and clinical experts across India and Asia. These CME programs have been used in the past by various Medical and Pharma institutions, and have today reached more than one lakh doctors in India."

Indegene is a fully accredited CME provider by the AACME. All its CMEs are subjected to rigorous review for quality and credibility by the AACME before being accredited. COSMECON - 2006, a conference, held during July 2006, exclusively dealing with the field of Cosmetology was the first conference in India to be accredited by AACME and this was also a joint initiative of Bangalore Dermatological Society and Indegene.