Two Kashmiri medical researchers have made it to the prestigious list of World’s top scientists across disciplines, a compilation of University of Stanford, USA.
Veteran gastroenterologist and ex-director SKIMS, Dr MS Khuroo, and the current head of Internal and Pulmonary Medicine SKIMS, Dr Parvaiz A Koul, have figured in the “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators”. It lists the top 2 percent scientists from all over the world from a list of over 1,59,000.
The database, a work of John Ioannidis, Kevin Boyack and Jeroene Bass from the departments of Medicine, Epidemiology and Public Health and Biomedical Data Science, University of Stanford, California, USA has been published in the October 16 issue of PLos Biology. It evaluated the global impact of the works of top scientists in the World.
The research profile of the two medicos has been enviable and since the breaking of the news, the social media was abuzz with congratulatory remarks from a wide range of people from all walks of life. Senior academicians have and a source of inspiration for the youngsters of the state.
Dr Koul said that it was “a moment of gratification to be in the list” and hoped that it motivated more and more researchers to publish in high impact journals. “The day one of my students outpaces me in every single sphere, I will be a satisfied man,” he said.
While giving advice to the budding researchers, he said, “Collaboration is the key to success and given the overall health of the funding bodies and a constant crunch on research funding, it is imperative that researchers collaborate with sister institutions and foreign universities to procure top notch equipment and adequate research wherewithal for their projects,” he said.
He thanked the Center for Disease Control (CDC) USA, GIHSN France, University of Utah and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for having funded his research from time to time. He thanked SKIMS Soura for the overall unobtrusive support for his research.
Dr Khuroo expressed concern over the fact that only two scientists from J&K have featured in the list. “We have more than six research institutions here in J&K. We need to be doing more research and more relevant research,” he said. He hoped that his and Dr Koul’s achievement inspires more scholars to devote their time and energy to science. “A medico’s primary job is not research but patient care. But we have institutions dedicated for research. We need to introspect how we can improve research standards here,” he said.
Dr Khuroo is acclaimed internationally for his discovery of Hepatitis E virus. After he superannuated from services in 1996, he headed the Gastroenterology and Liver Transplant Unit at King Faisal Hospital and Research Center Saudi Arabia. Currently, he is working at Dr Khuroo’s Medical Center at Qamarwari, Srinagar. He has published in World’s top journals of hepatology and medical sciences. He has received honorary Fellowships of Royal College of Physicians England (FRCP) and American College of Physicians (FACP). He has also been awarded the title of Master of American College of Physicians (MACP).
His Research Gate(RG) profile lists his RG score of 42.22 with a Research Interest score of 4362 and has 10600 citations to his credit and his works have had 44,999 reads. His H-index as per the Google scholar stands at 53.
Dr Koul is a voracious researcher whose work on the current threats and concerns in the medical arena is looked upto. He has published extensively on respiratory diseases and infectious diseases including the pandemic influenza. He also is the Chief Editor of the flagship journal, Lung India, the official organ of the Indian Chest Society.
Dr Koul has a total of 371 publications with an overall RG score of 51.65 with a Research interest score of 14516. As per Google scholar he has 166,417 reads of his publications and his works have been cited 27,600 times. His H-index is 46.
A separate country-wise list has also been published and the researchers feature among the top 5 in their respective fields in India.