From physiotherapy to AI, robotics: MRCCon 2026 highlights how medical rehabilitation has transformed in 27 years

The two-day conference started with a preliminary session at the Medical Rehabilitation Centre itself, with the final day of the conference commencing at The Park Hotel, Kolkata.

The conference was attended by  Dr. Madhuchanda Kar, renowned oncologist and National Vice-President of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Dr. M. M. Ghatak, Founder-in-Charge and Chief Consultant at the  Medical Rehabilitation Center (MRC) Satarupa Sanyal, Film Director and other revered academics and experts of the medical fraternity in the nation with over 150–200 specialist doctors and medical professionals, including faculties, residents and PGTs from a vast range of medical disciplines including Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R), Neurology, Rheumatology, and Neurosurgery and Orthopaedics.

“It gave me immense pleasure to welcome everyone as MRC proudly stepped into its 27th year of excellence in the rehabilitation of rheumatological and neuro-orthopaedic patients.

“MRCCon 2026 brought together renowned doctors and distinguished experts from across India and provided a valuable platform for sharing knowledge, discussing newer developments and strengthening the multidisciplinary approach to rehabilitation,” said Ghatak, speaking on the success of MRCCon 2026.

The 27th edition of MRCCon is inaugurated in the presence of Dr. M. M. Ghatak, Founder-in-Charge and Chief Consultant at the Medical Rehabilitation Center (MRC), and Satarupa Sanyal, Film Director. Photo: PR Team

Reflecting upon the journey of the Medical Rehabilitation Centre, Ghatak told IBNS, “MRC has changed a lot. You know the medical sciences and how it regularly changes because of so many modifications every day. So, medical rehabilitation in 2000, that was just some sort of physiotherapy, occupational therapy, but rehabilitation was a bit different from just physiotherapy, because in the rehabilitation team, there are physical medicine specialists who lead that full team, including physiotherapy, speech therapy, and all those.


“And at that time, it was more of a manual treatment, but now it has been changed to technological treatments. So many other new machines, like laser treatment, ultrasound, guided injections, robotic rehabilitation programs, treadmill- all these things have come up, and so that's why the rehabilitation science has changed a lot in the last 25 years. So what we had started and what we are now is a bit different.”

“Misconception is there, even though now the awareness is more. Earlier, people actually believed that rehabilitation only meant drug and alcohol rehabilitation. For that, rehabilitation centres are there.
People who were drug addicts or alcohol addicts were put in that rehab centre. But nowadays, neuro-rehabilitation, orthopedic rehabilitation, rheumatological rehabilitation, and stroke rehabilitation- all these things have come up with our leadership of physical medicine rehabilitation. So this is the biggest misconception till now, in India.
That is to be cleared,” said Ghatak, speaking on the misconceptions of Indian society on the concept of rehabilitation.

The conference covered various important topics of contemporary medical importance, notably, Medical Ethics in PMR, Rehab Surgery: A Less Told Story, AI and Robotics in Rehab, USG in Non-Traumatic Soft Tissue Pain: An Essential Tool in Rehab, and Medical Optimization in Neurorehabilitation: Modifiable Determinants of Functional Recovery, and many more.

(Reporting by Swastik Sarkar, Photos by PR Team)