The first four-day Indo-US international workshop on clinical research methods was organised at the Pride Hotel on Wednesday.

It aims to build the capacity of Indian researchers in areas of Adolescent HIV/AIDS Training and Research. It has been jointly organised by the University of South Florida, Baroda Medical College, Indu Research Foundation and the Vedant Institute of Medical Sciences.

Dr Vijay Shah from the Indu Health Research Foundation said: “The main objective of this grant is to build the capacity of Indian researchers in areas of Adolescent HIV/AIDS Training and Research. As part of this objective, we organised a three-day international workshop at Vadodara with 'ethical issues' as the central theme. This is our second successive workshop at Ahmedabad.”

The event was arranged as part of the 1.5 million dollar Fogarty International Grant received last as a five-year programme.

Chief Guest Dr Pankaj Patel, the Dean of National Municipal Medical College, expressed the need to promote research at the college and post-graduate level.

He said: “For long, Indian medical students have depended on foreign studies and medical research conducted by doctors in the West. Indian medical science is developing, and research will be a very important subject for the medical students in future.”

He addressed the need for doctors to help students by enhancing their research activities and developing research studies of their own.

Dr Shyam Mahapatra from the University of South Florida (USF) was called for a special lecture on research methodologies.

He threw light on methods of clinical research and spoke on research work, compilation, strengths and limitations of designs. He enlightened doctors on clinical trials and spoke on certain trials, which can be conducted only on humans and not on animals.

Dr Patel called for introducing a new amendment for the promotion of medical teachers. He said: “In order to promote research in all medical colleges, teachers should be encouraged. As in the West, teachers here should be given hierarchies and promoted for instance, Assistant Professor to Associate Professors and so on.”

MSU Vice-Chancellor Dr R K Goyal said: “Indian doctors and even medical students have immense knowledge on genetics. This workshop was organised to enhance the genetic knowledge of doctors and develop newer methods of research to deal with a grave subject like AIDS.”

Experts from the USF instructed Indian doctors who have been bringing in medical expertise from the West either through their degrees or course of medicines, to gauge medicines and researches before using them.

USF professor Dr Ambuj Kumar said: “Indian doctors have a tendency to follow the US blindly. But they fail to understand the drawbacks. A success of the research doesn't depend on the success achieved in the US.

“Most of the research carried out in the US is not applicable to Indian patients. Indian doctors need to broaden their perspectives, question the researches, and then apply it on patients here.”