The Medical Council of India had acknowledged the need to cultivate scientific and logical thought among the doctors, otherwise busy with their clinical and laboratory work. Biostatistics was recognized as the basic tool to achieve this. During the last three or four decades, biological, scientific and medical sciences have shown remarkable advances and this has made ‘decision making’, particularly in the fields of health care, dependent on the ability of medical and biological scientists to base their decisions on a variety of carefully planned, executed, analyzed and interpreted investigations like epidemiological studies, clinical trials, biological assays, laboratory experiments, operational research and hospital and community based registries. In this context, a medical professional’s training, particularly that of a medical researcher or medical administrator, would be considered incomplete today without a reasonable acquaintance with the potentialities of applications of biostatistical techniques to enable him / her to plan his / her research studies with scientifically and statistically valid designs and to arrive at valid and meaningful conclusions by applying appropriate statistical methods.

Services
The Department of Biostatistics offers the following services:  

To train the faculty, post graduate students and scientific staff in research methodologies, epidemiological methods and biostatistical methods to help them in preparing scientifically and statistically valid research projects, to analyze the data applying appropriate statistical methods and interpreting the results meaningfully and validly.

1. To train young statisticians, either fresh or working in medical colleges and research institutions, in the application of statistical methods in medical, biological and epidemiological research.
2. To conduct workshops and seminars for updating the knowledge in statistical designs and techniques of analysis.
3. To scrutinize the research proposals from faculty, scientists and students for their statistical and scientific validity.
4. To conduct research projects for developing appropriate statistical designs and methods of analysis needed to the present situations depending upon the nature of the problem and the data collected.
5. To advise and help the Medical Colleges and Research Institutes outside AIMS in teaching, training, research and CME programmes whenever requested for help.
6. To design the experimental and epidemiological studies and analyze the data of the projects of medical researchers, AIMS faculty and students funded by various national and international research institutions and Pharma companies.
7. To provide the researchers statistical inputs for protocol preparation, study design, randomization, sample size estimation, identification and development of appropriate study designs  and statistical analysis plans and validation of Biostatistical programmes.

Courses

1. Master of Science (Biostatistics)
2. Lectures with Practicals in Biostatistics and Epidemiological and Research methods
3. Short term certificate courses

Master of Science (Biostatistics)
The Department offers a two years’ post graduate programme in Biostatistics. This Master’s programme will help the students to emerge as biostatisticians as required by the industries, both Government and private sectors, including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medicine, healthcare, clinical trails, health education, software development and other healthcare settings. There is a huge demand for biostatisticians in hospitals, research centres, universities, pharmaceutical companies and government agencies to apply statistical principles and methods and implement and analyze health related studies including both experimental and observational studies. Also, due to the shortage of qualified biostatisticians for teaching biostatistics and research methodologies to the UG & PG course students there is always a big demand for those who possesses PG degree in Biostatistics.

Duration:    Two years.
Course affiliation:          Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham.
Eligibility:   Graduates in Statistics or Mathematics with paper(s) in Statistics.
Selection criteria: Students with eligibility will be selected for entrance examination and interview. Based on the performance in the entrance examination and interview, the candidates shall be selected for the course.
Program structure:
Semester I

• Basic Medical Sciences: Important Terms and Principles.
• Essential Mathematics for Statistics.
• Descriptive Statistical Methods.
• Probability Theory, distributions and Stochastic Processes.

Semester II

• Statistical Inference.
• Sample Size Estimation and Sampling Methods.
• Epidemiology I (Epidemiology and Epidemiological methods & Design and Analysis of Case-control studies).

Semester III

• Epidemiology II (Design and Analysis of Cohort studies and Survival Analysis).
• Demography & Health Statistics.
• Design and Analysis of Experiments and Clinical Trials.
• Project Work.

Semester IV

• Multivariate Analysis.
• Optional Subject (Any one).

a) Statistical Methods in the Analysis of Biological Assays.
b) Quantitative Genetics
c) Health Economics, Econometrics & Cost-benefit analysis methods.
d) Statistical Methods in Quality Control.
e) Bio-informatics.

• Project Work (Continued).

Statistical Softwares
Every student will be provided with a computer with statistical softwares such as SPSS, SYSTAT, EPI INFO, nMaster and SAS. This prepares the students for all the future challenges, both nationally and even internationally, in planning the research studies and analyzing the data with statistical and scientific validity.

Seminar and Journal club Presentations
For the development of the research aptitude and communication skills, students shall make presentation on specified topics and journal articles frequently under the guidance of the faculty in the department.

Statistical Consultancy
During the course, the students will be exposed with statistical consultation under the supervision of faculty for the development of basic skills in consultation.

Placement
Successful candidates of this course may get opportunities to work as Faculty / Statisticians, Officers in Medical Colleges, Research Institutions, Health Ministries, Pharmaceutical Concerns and Universities.

Lectures with Practicals in Biostatistics and Epidemiological and Research methods)
A series of lectures with practicals using SPSS and SAS in Biostatistical and Epidemiological & Research methods are given for the following courses.

(1) M. Tech. courses in Nano-Medicine & Technology and Molecular Medicine
(2) MD / MS / DM / M.Ch. / DNB / MDS.
(3) MBBS, 7th Semester.
(4) All Ph. D. students.
(5) Master of Hospital Administration.
(6) M. Sc. in Nursing.
(7) Master of Pharmacy.
(8) All M. Sc. Allied Health Sciences courses.
(9) Practical sessions in SPSS are held for AIMS students, faculty and   researchers.

Short term certificate courses
The Department is planning to conduct regular short term certificate courses in “Biostatistics and Epidemiological research methods” and also in the “Application of statistical softwares SPSS, SYSTAT and SAS”, for the analysis of research data, for  the benefit of students, faculty and scientists in the Institute and also from outside the Institute.


Book Published


Title of the Book: Medical Statistics - Principles & Methods

Medical treatment is becoming more and more dependent on decisions arrived at through a variety of carefully planned and interpreted investigations. Biostatistics is recognized as the basic tool for arriving at these decisions. Today training of a medical research worker as well as a medical practitioner would be considered incomplete without a reasonable acquaintance with biostatistical techniques. The present book is aimed at providing a comprehensive treatment of the subject and to serve as a textbook of biostatistics for graduate and post graduate medical & dental course students, biostatistics/Medical statistics course students  and for the  students of pharmaceutical, nursing, nano-medical sciences and doctoral degree courses. The book will be especially useful for those engaged in clinical and epidemiological research.

Authors:

Prof. K. R. Sundaram
Head, Department of Biostatistics &
Chief Co-ordinator,
M.Sc course in Clinical Research
Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences
Ponekkara P. O., Kochi-682041 (Kerala)

Dr. S. N. Dwivedi
Addl. Professor
Department of Biostatistics
All India Institute of Medical Sciences
Ansari Nagar, New Delhi-110029

Dr. V. Sreenivas
Assoc. Professor
Department of Biostatistics
All India Institute of Medical Sciences
Ansari Nagar, New Delhi-110029

Publisher: BI Publications Pvt. Ltd., 54, Janpath, New Delhi - 110001

• 5 Mill Officers Colony, Besides Old RBI Bank, La Gajjar Chambers, Ashram Road, Ahmedabad-380009
• 147, Infantry Road, Bangalore-560001
• 9/10, Agurchand Mansion,150, Mount Road, Chennai-600002
• 37/116, Lissie Hospital  Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018
• 4-4-1, Dilshad Plaza, Sultan Bazzar, Hyderabad-500095
• Heritage Building, Madhav Nagar, Manipal-576104
• 18, Lansdowne Road, Mumbai-400039
• 13,Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002
• 28/2776,Geetanjali, Chettikulangara, Thiruvananthapuram-695001

At AIMS, copies of the book are available at the Students’ Stores located in the ground floor of the College of Dentistry. Discount on the price may be available.

ISBN: 978-81-7225-319-6
Year of Publication: 2009
Number of pages: 386
Price: Rs. 395/- (Paperback edition)

• Lucid presentation of the basics of biostatistics based on the long teaching and research experience of the authors.
• A large number of clinical examples included to illustrate practical applications of different statistical techniques and tools.
• Text supplemented by a large number of diagrams to facilitate understanding of different concepts/applications.
• Attractive two-colour format

Contents of the Book

Facilities

Infrastructure overview: The Biostatistics Department is located in the 8th and 9th floors of the Amrita School of Medicine, AIMS. The AIMS is equipped with excellent IT infrastructure. The department is well equipped with all modern facilities.

Computer Lab: The Department has a well outfitted computer lab with internet connections and latest softwares - SPSS for windows, SAS 9.1.0, Epi Info, nMaster and SYSTAT. It also has online access to most of the biomedical databases and journals. The department computer lab is open to faculty and students of the Institute. The Department computer system has been integrated to the Institute network system.

Class room details: Modern facilities are available in the class rooms. Teaching is carried out in the Department with the aid of latest audio-video equipments.

Faculty

Prof.( Dr.) K. R. Sundaram, M.Sc (Statistics), Ph.D (Biostatistics)
Professor and Head

An expert in the field of Biostatistics, Dr. Sundaram has a Ph.D. from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He attended various courses in Biostatistics in the University of Michigan, USA in 1973. He was Faculty in the Department of Biostatistics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi for 30 years and HOD for 15 years. He was Sub-Dean at AIIMS, New Delhi for two years. He was visiting faculty in Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat for 5 years. During his more than four decades’ of teaching and research, he has published over 200 papers in national and international journals and chapters in books. He has authored a text book in medical statistics titled Medical Statistics - Principles & Methods. He is the recipient of two Fellowships-FSMS & FRSS. He has attended more than 75 National & International conferences. He has visited 23 countries abroad for professional programmes. His areas of specialization include application of basic and advanced statistical methods to medical, biological and epidemiological research data, especially in Growth and development and nutrition of children, clinical trials and epidemiological studies of drug abuse and various diseases in the population. He was / is the main/co-investigator/consultant in more than 100 research projects. He is also the guide/co-guide/statistical consultant in more than 200 postgraduate theses/dissertations. Dr. Sundaram joined Amrita in December 2005.


Ms. Amrutha Jose, M. Sc. (Biostatistics)
Lecturer

Ms. Amrutha has more than three years’ experience in teaching, especially in Biostatistics and Epidemiological methods. She completed her M. Sc. (Biostatistics) from St. Thomas College, Palai. Her areas of interest include application of statistical methods to medical data, SAS applications and epidemiological studies.


Mr. Deep ak K. S., M. Sc. (Statistics)
Lecturer

Mr. Deepak completed his M. Sc. (Statistics) from Cochin University of Science and Technology. He has two years of teaching experience with a special focus on applied statistics.


Ms. Sheejamol V. S., M. Sc. (Biostatistics)
Lecturer

Ms. Sheejamol completed her M. Sc. (Biostatistics) from St. Thomas College, Palai. She has a years' teaching experience with a special focus on statistical analysis in medical and epidemiological research.


Contact Us

Phone Number: 0484 - 4008184, 4008186
Email: krsundaram@aims.amrita.edu