The Global Surg Collaborative of the University of Birmingham has been progressing in leaps and bounds. The first hub in Asia was established in India at CMC Ludhiana and we are now looking at a long term relationship between UoB and CMC
The India hub is now manned by young surgeons in Ludhiana and around the country and is now looking to involve interns, medical students, and registrars.
We aim to change policy through high-quality research which will eventually improve surgical care in India as well as around the world.
Global Surg is now a collaborative of more than 800 surgeons in 100 countries, one of the largest in the world.
- The FALCON RCT in India took off in Ludhiana at the end of July and since then we have had the mission hospital in Manali, St Stephens Delhi and CMC Vellore joining us as spokes. We are now almost at the verge of opening the project in th hospitals in Chinchpada and Madhepura. We are also looking at involving more district hospitals as well as larger tertiary care in this project along with more mission hospitals. You would be proud to know that India and Nigeria are the largest recruiters for this project worldwide and more importantly, CMC Ludhiana, is the largest recruiter in the world at the moment!!!!
- CMC Ludhiana with the UoB, India Institute and the British High Commission organised a one day work shop in Delhi in October where young surgical researchers from all over the country attended. The delegates were from districts hospitals as well as from mission hospitals in 10 states. They are going to be the next lot which will drive Global Surg forward in order to make policy changes which will improve surgical healthcare in India and take the leadership back from money making corporates!!
- After this workshop the team from UoB lead by Prof Dion Morton (head of surgery at UoB) visited Ludhiana and had lots of meetings with medical students, registrars and young surgical consultants. The objective was to make them ready to lead research in Ludhiana and India. We have a very excited bunch of students and registrars who have now got involved in Global Surg. A spin off was that the UoB is now providing free GCP training to 1st and 2nd yr med students at Ludhiana, to get them ready for participating in research through the global surg hub
- Global Surg’s next RCT called Cheetah is in the stage of getting ethical approval from Ludhiana and we hope to launch it by Jan 2020
- The India hub at CMC Ludhiana and the University of Edinburgh have now found additional funding for another project called CRANE which works on nutrition in cancer. We are now getting ethical approval for this and hope to launch this soon as well
- The UoB has been leading the FOXTROT trial in the UK and Europe in colorectal cancer chemotherapy. This trial has just ended. However the UoB has now arranged additional funding to have this trial happen in India and will be led by CMC Ludhiana and Vellore
- By mid 2020 we also paln to launch a trial on perioperative care (PENGUIN) and also on intestinal anastomosis (EAGLE)
- As said earlier we look to build the next generation of researchers and to this objective, a study by one of our interns on surgical aspects of abdominal tuberculosis was selected for full funding as a microstudy this year
- All this has got both sides very excited and we are now looking at in the future to open a clinical trials unit and health economics unit along with the UoB for India, which will be based in Ludhiana. This we hope will put CMCL firmly on the map as leaders of surgical research in India and other LMIC countries. The Hub model in India is now been adopted in many countries in Africa and we are very kicked about it.