IMU Pharmacy Lecturer Wins “Outstanding Researcher in Pharmacology” Award

29 September 2018 – Dr Palanisamy Sivanandy, a lecturer from the School of Pharmacy, International Medical University (IMU), recently received the “Outstanding Researcher in Pharmacology” Award from the Venus International Foundation, India at the ‘1st Annual Healthcare Meet and Venus International Healthcare Awards Ceremony’ held at Le Royal Meridian, Chennai, India. Dr Palani, as he is known to his students, received this award in recognition of his two decades of contribution to teaching and research in the field of pharmacy. In this ceremony, Dr Palani was also given the privilege to deliver a keynote speech on “Adverse Drug Reactions and Drug Interactions – A Potential Threat to Life”. Dr Palani has published more than 60 research papers in national and international indexed peer reviewed journals and serves as an editorial board member of several reputed international journals. He has also received numerous grants from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Indian Department of Science & Technology; Centre for International Co-Operation in Science and the International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Dr Palani is also the recipient of the Young Researcher Award from ICMR and DST for his doctoral research work. He has presented his research findings in various international conferences. Here, Dr Palani shares about his research interests, his current work and also his advice for pharmacy students who want to get into research.

What are your major areas of research interest?
My main areas of interest are cardiovascular and diabetic medications, pharmacovigilance, drug safety monitoring, prescription auditing, clinical research and development, cancer research, sleep medicines, and patient safety.
What are you now currently working on?
Currently I am working on pharmacovigilance (also known as drug safety) and patient safety projects. Patient safety is the ultimate principle for healthcare providers to achieve high-quality health care. However, it is a major public health issue, affecting countries worldwide at all levels of development. There are many studies on patient safety in hospital setup carried out in Malaysia, but both hospital and community pharmacies are least focused. Hence, I started my research in 2014 to explore and evaluate the retail pharmacists’ knowledge, attitude and practice of patient safety in their pharmacy premises and to identify the strength and areas for patient safety improvement. I completed this patient safety research in 9 states of Malaysia including Sabah and Sarawak, and planning to continue with other remaining states.
What is your advice to pharmacy students who wish to pursue research?
Staying organised, hard work with dedication are very important for a research student. Setting of achievable goal or aim, proper planning and execution of work are paramount to succeed in the field of research. There are many thurst areas of pharmacy and health sciences less focused due to ethical and economical concerns, that has to be focused in future. Have some dedicated team members with individual goal to boost up research output. Frequently update your knowledge with current trends in the medical, pharmaceutical and health science fields. Publish your work once you have completed your research to have at least one or more publication while graduating.