Kolkata: Department of endocrinology at IPGMER, Kolkata has become the first department under West Bengal Medical Education to be honoured with Collaborating Centre of Excellence (CCoE) recognition for its contributions and research in field of molecular biology, public health, food and nutrition as well as clinical excellence for five years.
This national recognition is expected to help in institutional networking, research collaborations and empowering about 26 centres across the country—with the ICMR honour— to contribute to the national health policies. Among the most notable work by IPGMER’s endocrinology department is the initiative on Type 1 diabetes. So far, CCoE in the field of endocrinology and diabetes has been bagged by CMC Vellore and Dr Mohan’s Diabetes Centre Chennai respectively. This ICMR-CCoE is conferred on select institutes or departments across India that have demonstrated sustained research, outcome and capacity building that aligns with the national health policy. The model that takes on to fight childhood diabetes has already gained recognition as the Bengal Model, and fetched global recognition. Much of the model’s input has been adopted in the national childhood diabetes programme, which the health ministry incorporated into its national health policy under Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram.