Medical Research in India: Building the Future of Patient Care - Dr Anju Aggarwal

Medical research is the key to improvement in quality of life of patients. Basic research for newer drugs needs to be further studied in humans. Newer vaccines need demonstrate efficacy at community level. Newer treatments and procedures should have efficacy, should be cost effective and with minimal side-effects. Now in the era of precision medicine we need to shift from one medicine for all patients to medicine for a particular genotype. This requires molecular diagnosis (whole genome , whole exome sequencing), genotype phenotype correlation. Precision medicine had a role in common diseases as asthma, tuberculosis, epilepsy. Research is required to make use of genetics a standard guideline in future. Qualitative research is equally important for improving quality of life of patients, care-givers and improve acceptance of preventive measures and therapy advised. A medico should have skills to carry out research and apply newer therapies based on evidence.

Research is the key to evidence-based medicine. Here are some things we need to ensure so that Medical research in India is promoted.

• The National Medical Council should continue the need for thesis writing in the postgraduate medical curriculum. This exposes the student to research methodology, how to interpret new research and how to publish. If this becomes optional, we will lose the opportunity of about 60,000 research ideas. Even if 10% of this is published, it would amount to 6,000 research papers.

• All articles case reports, observational studies, meta-analysis etc should be included in research.

• PhD should be encouraged.

• Biostatistics services should be available.

• Centralized laboratory facilities should be established for genetic analysis.

• Centralized laboratory support will help in accurate measurement of bio-markers, cytokines, etc levels, hence will help in facilitation of new / basic research

• Training of students and mentors in research methodology and biostatistics should be encouraged.

• Funding procedures for research projects should be simplified, as documentation of accounts etc, hinders uptake of grants in government institutes at times.

• Publication funding needs to be a part of research promotion.

• Publication of a larger number of journals pertaining to research in our country needs to be introduced.

• Ethics committees are there in medical colleges and major corporate institutions, centralised ethical committees to established for practitioners to carry out research.

• Proper use of AI will help in training and publication.

• Plagiarism checks software to be made available.

• Innovative research awards should be there for encouragement, though no one works for an award. A love for your research and publication is what keeps you going.

• Centralized data of rare diseases/ new treatments/ registries of chronic and rare diseases to be made.

• Students should be trained in ethical practices.

• Students should be sensitized that any new treatment or preventive measure needs to be researched before implementation.

• There should be inter-sectoral coordination between medical institutes, ayurveda, engineering institutes, biotechnology, molecular genetic research, and the institute looking after public health so that society is healthy and receives evidence-based, latest treatment.

• Funding for public health projects can be sought from the WHO, UNICEF, and other national and international agencies.

• Innovations can be researched with inter-sectoral coordination.

• Research should not always be linked to promotion; guidelines are required, but they should be practical, and new research takes about 2-3 years from inception to publication if quality work is carried out. Impact factor and H index may not be the right methods to determine the quality of research. At times research ideas may be useful 10 -20 years after the research is published.

• Sites should be available where unpublished work can be uploaded so that anyone interested can go through it.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are of the author and not of Medical Dialogues. The Editorial/Content team of Medical Dialogues has not contributed to the writing/editing/packaging of this article.