"A privilege to collaborate with CMC Vellore"
Professor Solomon Sathishkumar, Principal of Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore, recently visited the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences (MDHS) to strengthen and enhance the connections between the two organisations.
Professor Solomon met with senior faculty leaders, including the Dean, Heads of Schools, the Deputy Dean, the Associate Dean Research, and Associate Dean International, as well as researchers and the graduate research team. He also attended a joint dinner reception co-hosted by the faculty and the Friends of Vellore Association.
CMC Vellore has provided high-level quality care for some of the poorest and most marginalised communities in India for over 125 years. The organisation serves 11,000 outpatients and 3000 inpatients a day, and targets services to those who are unable to pay. At the same time it remains the highest-ranked private medical college nationally, and ranks in the top three of all medical colleges in India.
CMC Vellore only charges students $70 a year to train at the facility. In return for such cheap tuition, graduates have a service obligation to work across 120 peripheral hospitals in rural India, setting the expectation that each graduate must give back to the community and serve those in need throughout India.
The faculty initially signed a memorandum of understanding with CMC Vellore in 2018, which was renewed last year. Since then, there have been significant joint research outputs including 121 co-authored publications in medicine. Key areas of research collaboration between the faculty and CMC Vellore include general medicine, public health, environmental and occupational health, infectious diseases and neurology.
The partnership is mutually beneficial. In addition to the positive social impact of their work, CMC Vellore’s training and research capacity integrate well with the faculty and its scale aligns with the patient load of the University of Melbourne’s partner health services. CMC Vellore has a similar number of beds as the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Royal Melbourne, Royal Children’s, Royal Women’s, Footscray, Sunshine, Northern, Austin and St Vincent’s hospitals combined.
Additionally, CMC Vellore engages with numerous leading international and Australian universities, and is able to access funding from most major health granting initiatives such as the Wellcome Trust, National Institutes of Health, Medical Research Council UK, National Health and Medical Research Council, Indian Council for Medical Research and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
During the visit, Professor Solomon met with leaders to progress the CMC Vellore and University of Melbourne Health Leaders Program. This initiative was the brainchild of Professor Jane Gunn and has led to collaborative research in areas such as cystic fibrosis, as well as various faculty exchange visits and 13 PhD projects which are now underway. A number of additional PhD opportunities were identified during the visit.
These PhD students, who are senior faculty at CMC Vellore, are enrolled at University of Melbourne and are jointly supervised by senior academics at the University of Melbourne and CMC Vellore. The projects take place at CMC Vellore, capitalising on their scale and impact.
The meetings also facilitated the development of placement opportunities for students from the University of Melbourne. CMC Vellore hosts around 350 international elective students each year and the faculty has recently sent students training and researching in the fields of social work, physiotherapy, audiology, optometry and public health. A clear framework is now in place to support increased numbers of students to undertake learning placements at CMC Vellore.
Jenna Kassam, a Doctor of Physiotherapy student, recently returned from her placement in India.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to witness the valuable impact CMC Vellore has on its community. Their holistic approach to healthcare truly goes above and beyond to uplift patients and their families throughout their journey. This experience has been a privilege to be a part of and I am thankful for the opportunity to learn in this context,” she said.
At the joint dinner reception co-hosted with the Friends of Vellore, Professor Solomon outlined how the University of Melbourne has become CMC’s most significant academic partner, while Professor Elif Ekinci and Felix Jebasingh talked about the significant opportunities afforded by the partnership and the groundbreaking research they are doing together in the field of gestational diabetes.
The Friends of Vellore continue to cooperate with the faculty to support PhD students and visits from staff at CMC Vellore to the University of Melbourne. David Rania, the President of the Friends of Vellore Association Victoria, spoke of the privilege to be able to support CMC Vellore students so they can benefit from attending a world-leading university.
Senior staff from the Melbourne Medical School and the Melbourne Dental School will visit CMC Vellore in December to progress discussions about joint degree programs and various research projects. Another delegation from the Department of Paediatrics and the Melbourne School Health Sciences is planned for next year.