No research papers from 332 medical colleges in 10 years

New Delhi: A total of 332 medical colleges in India have not published any research papers during 2005-14, a journal has revealed.

According to journal Current Medicine Research and Practice, 162 medical colleges registered under the Medical Council of India (MCI) and 170 under the National Board of Examination (NBE) have not contributed at all towards research in medical science.

Among the top 10 medical institutes under the MCI, in order of their research output are the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh, Christian Medical College in Vellore and Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences(SGPGIMS) in Lucknow.

"There are 579 medical institutes in the government and private sectors. (A total of) 316 institutes are under the MCI and 263 under the NBE. Their total research output during the period 2005-2014 was 101,034 papers, with the average number of publications per institution being 14.5 papers per year," said the journal authored by Samiran Nundy, dean of the Ganga Ram Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (GRIPMER).

Among states which have medical colleges but no medical research papers were Maharashtra with 25 medical colleges, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh with 24 medical colleges each and Bihar with seven medical colleges, among several others.

States like Assam, Chattisgarh, Goa have shown good results as all the medical colleges there have submitted enough research papers.