Countries talked about the Finnish Experience so as the importance of R&D. The world has witnessed the contribution of R&D in the national progress. India has also understood the necessity of Research based projects in various sector. This can be evidenced by the exceptional good increase in the R&D expenditure. It says that from 1959 the set amount was Rs.20 cores and it has tremendously increased to Rs.800 cores in 2004. There is a visible increase in the number of Science and Technology institutes also.

Increase Research practice in Medical Field

But we have to have an answer to the questions, is this figure in R&D expenses is enough? This is with regard to the rising competing scenario in India, who is going to beat the largest population record. The number of scientific paper published in the science stream is rather disappointing, especially in the medical field. Even in the crucial time were the medical field has to get a priority based consideration, the number of research paper published in this sector is negligible. Why this is happening? The answer is simple; we don’t have an education system which supports the research practice in the medical field that every other country poses.  Even we consider the medical education is a vital part of the higher education system, the research programs in this sector gets lowest priority in the overall national plan.

What the statistics says?

A survey conducted by ICMR shows that during the period 1990-94 not even single medical college in India published a research paper. During this period India witnessed a lot of new colleges in the medical field were up and coming. In 1947 we have 20 medical colleges giving opportunity to 1200 students to have medical education. But today it is increased up to 16 to 17 times and the numbers of seats are counted in lakhs. This is a marvelous growth, but only in numbers. When we consider the quality part it is worst and in a pathetic situation.

There are a number of reasons which can be pointed out for the poor quality in the medical education. The best one is the lack of resources, both in financial as well as the manpower terms. Most of our medical colleges lack in terms of well equipped laboratories and that is one of the main reasons why the students as well as the staff get hardly any exposure to the newest technologies and the scope of biomedicine in the medical field. This lack of knowledge about the global scenario hindered the professors and the lectures to attempt any sort of research program in specialized area.  Also there is minimal initiation from the funding agencies to support any medical research. Lot of committees was formulated during the years to take care of the manpower development in this area. However, no committee will address the critical need of research based medical education. It is at present very crucial to make the medical students and service globally competitive.

What have been done?

A large number of students are interested in the research based medical education. This is evidenced regarding the increasing popularity of ICMR’s Short training Studentship, STS, programs etc. Students show a good amount of concern towards the conference of National Medical Students’ Research for undergraduates.

Introduce research based education

A number of conferences were carried out in this field and the students are given a chance to present their ideas and research paper, which is highly influential.  The best ideas and research papers were awarded in the conference which motivates a lot number of students to attend the conference. After the second conference, the whole committee identifies the common need of a body called Indian Forum of Medical Student’s Research, INFORMER.

But ICMR faced few problems in bringing back the awardees of STS for the next year. ICMR lacked the financial support and facilities to provide a good research atmosphere to the talents.  We need to provide a training workshop for the awardees for a short duration and provide support by way of good facilities to go on with their projects.  Students need to have a couple of “Laboratory Research Incubators” that is freely accessible to them. This can also be made useful to the post graduate in MD/MS.

An Overlook!!!!

In today’s time we have a lot of new diseases, some are very dangerous, epidemic and even unknown to the medical science. So a how much a research and development mean to this sector is obvious. Now we are running from fevers, a lot in number. Some time ago fevers and that types of illness were treated at home itself, but as our lifestyle changes so as the nature of the fever. All most all the alphabets credited with one fever. Why this happened? For these answers we have to look into the thesis and research programs of other nations, since we don’t have one. Even our national condition is different from those countries; we blindly believe their observations and findings. How this is going to effective in the Indian scenario is not being considered.

The present condition of India is that, US and European countries are our medical laboratories. When H1N1 hit in India we have to seek the mercy of those countries for effective medicine and prevention. Even today India doesn’t have an antibiotic for the disease. India does have shortage of resources, but the country is not trying to overcome this scenario. All most all drugs are imported from other countries or the patent is with the foreign manufactures. India have talented and efficient human resource, but still we have to depend other  countries. So it is the time to rethink the system of medical education and to invest more and more into it.

All most all countries have MD/PhD program but we are not interested in that. So the talented medical students are forced to go outside the country for the research work and ultimately they get settled in those countries. We only have the normal Medical diploma. MD/PhD takes two or three more years to complete than the MD program. But they can have an opportunity to work on a research paper and interested students can go on with their research rather than the medical practicing. But Government should support the system and have to provide enough financial backup for the research programs. When we are introducing the MD/PhD program there should be a total reframing in the career planning of medical professional.

It is a fact that we cannot introduce the research based education all of a sudden in every medical institution. But we can starts with the institutions like AIIMS, CMC etc. We can also seek the help of biomedical and life science institutes or specially organized centre like TATA memorial in our country for the research purpose. We can also introduce a short term research theme in the MBBS curriculum, in the form of in-study research training. This will help them in the further studies. The quality of our laboratories should also go hand in hand with the new technologies and medical equipment as to support R&D.

Now we can dream for drugs with Indian patent and the introduction of new technologies in the medical services. We have to dream for the leadership position in every field since we have the potential to be so. We have to make our talent competent in the global scenario and stop importing the talents from other countries. India has a long way to go and can take the first step today by asking for the research based education in medical field, the mother of new knowledge. A self dependent Healthy India, this is the aim of the newly created Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family welfare.