With interlocking nailing becoming more popular method of treatment for the long bone fractures in the early nineties, there was a tremendous demand to learn this technique which was still in infancy in India at that time and only a selected few were doing them at cosmopolitan cities. The availability of Indian implants which were competitively priced also resulted in more and more orthopaedic surgeons eager to learn and do nailing. Prof. V.M. Iyer from Bangalore, Dr. B. Shivashankar from Solapur along with Dr. Rajat Varma from Indore (now in London, UK) conducted many hands on workshop and Live operative demonstrations at many places like Aurangabad, Bilaspur, Panaji, Chandigarh, Nagpur, Thane, Pune, Kolhapur, Solapur, etc. Closed Nailings of Femur with Interlocking by Guide Wire Sounding Technique or ‘The Solapur technique’, Tibia and Humerus interlocking nailing was demonstrated and the same became popular. The problems and complications faced by we Indians were discussed which were much different from the already published ones the westerners faced. It was due to varied reasons from medullary canal being narrow, to patient not coming for follow up or not coming in time for dynamisation etc. So, the necessity to have a group of surgeons having interest in interlocking nailing technique to discuss and sort out our local problems was felt during such meetings. Thus the idea to form a separate group with interlocking nailing as the common interest was mooted by Dr. Rajat Varma at Jaipur IOACON 2000 with Prof. Iyer and Dr. Shivashankar and thus the idea to form NAILS was born during the banquet of Jaipur IOACON in 2000!
Dr. Rajat Varma took the responsibility to organize the first ever national meet at Indore in Feb 2001. The first meet had speakers from all over India to give a wider all india base to the association from the inception. At this meeting in Indore which was attended by over 250 delegates from nook and corner of the country the tentative executive body was formed and Prof.Vishwanath Iyer’s name was suggested for the founder President’s post and Dr. Rajat Varma for the Founder Secretary’s and Dr. B. Shivashankar as Founder Jont secretary. The executive committee included people from all the corners of India like Dr. Rajagopalan from Bangalore, Dr. N.K. Aggarwal from Ludhiana, Dr. S C. Goel from Varanasi, Dr. Sunil Kulkarni from Miraj, Dr. John Mukhopadyaya from Patna and Dr. Ved Midha from Gwalior. . Subsequently this body was ratified and installed at the hands of the then IOA president Prof. Dr. G. S. Kulkarni at Bangalore in Feb 2002 during the Nailscon 2002. Prof. Dr. N. K. Aggarwal from Ludhiana, Prof. N. Rajagopalan from Bangalore, Professor Dr. S.C. Goel from Varanasi and Dr. K.K. Pruthi from Agra, Dr. B. Shivashankar from Solapur, Dr. Vilas Jog from Pune, Dr. Sudhir Babhulkar from Nagpur, Dr Sunil kulkarn from Miraj, Dr Wasudeo Gadegone from Chandrapur, Dr Ajit saigal from Varanasi, Dr Arindam Bannerjee from Kolkata, Dr Charanjeet Ajmani from Ankleshwar, Dr. Rajiv Chatterjee from Kolkata and Dr Sanjiv Gaur, Dr Amit Ajgaonkar have worked subsequently as the Presidents and at present we have the Dr. Sanjay Dhawan from Agra as the President and Dr. Sushrut Babhulkar from Nagpur as President Elect and Dr. Amit Rastogi from Varanasi is the secretary. The covid pandemic since march 2020 disrupted all the activities for two years like the planned NAILSCON 2020 at Chandigarh. Recently NAILSCON 2022 was successfully conducted at Taj Convention Centre, Goa
The popularity of the association can be seen with the ever increasing number of delegates attending the annual conferences. It was little over 250 at Indore in 2001 and at Agra during the 8th Nailscon in September 2008 it crossed 700! The other conferences at Bangalore, Varanasi, Ludhiana, Pune, Coimbatore, Goa, Khajuraho Kolkatta, Chennai, Udaipur, Nagpur, Varanasi, Kaziranga, Solapur, Corbett, Vishakapatnam and Bhopal have taken the association to the present extent of having over 900 members as its life members. NAILS has started fellowship too for interested Surgeons to visit different centers for experience and learning newer techniques.
The successful conferences year after year and also the increase in the interest of orthopaedic surgeons in this Interlocking Nailing technique helped this NAILS to be recognized as the official sub specialty of IOA in 2006 and the first ever such meeting was held at IOACON 2006 at New Delhi and the subsequent ones at Kolkatta, Bengalooru, Bhubaneshwar, Jaipur, Banglore, Chennai, Noida, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Agra, Coimbatore, Kochi, Kolkata, Goa etc. At all these places the NAILS subspeciality meet had jam packed halls during IOACON.