Lacking in research, yet SGPC medical college in for upgrade

Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 13

The state government seems to be in a hurry to upgrade the SGPC-run Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Medical Sciences & Research (SGRDIMSR), Amritsar, to a medical university even as the institute has not a single quality publication to its credit in the last one year.

According to sources in the Department of Medical Education and Research, senior government functionaries have told the department officials to complete all formalities as the government wants to table the Bill to upgrade the institute during the ongoing Budget session.

In terms of quality of medical research, the performance of the institute is reportedly poor. Scopus, one of the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, shows 18 contributions from the institute last year. Even in the majority of these works, the research was carried out somewhere else and the faculty members from the institute were just co-authors.

Of 18 publications, only three appeared in reputed journals, which had some impact. Among the three, one was just a medical case study, two had main authors from other institutes.

Pub Med, another search engine of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics, which shows some quality research, shows only eight contributions from the institute in one year. Most of these fall either in category of case studies or short communications.

Even in its entire history, the institute couldn’t produce much when it comes to quality medical research. The government has already constituted an inspection committee comprising Principal Secretary, Higher Education; Secretary, Medical Education, Hussan Lal; Vice-Chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot, Dr Raj Bahadur; head, Oral Health Sciences, PGIMER, Dr Krishan Gaba; and Vice-Chancellor of Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.

In January, the committee had asked the institute to show quality research work in the field of medical or dental sciences, but the authorities didn’t have much to show.

Dr Geeta Sharma, college principal, said they were getting publications according to the parameters prescribed by the Medical Council of India. “We have good publications at Pub Med, but I don’t know why these are not figuring in its database,” she said.

Moreover, the state already has two medical universities, the BFUHS, with which all medical, dental and nursing colleges of the state are affiliated, and Adesh University, Bathinda.

The government is already facing criticism for opening 11 private universities in just five years allegedly overlooking deficiencies. Husan Lal could not be contacted for a comment.