A hand transplant team from Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences here has won this year's prestigious British Medical Journal award in the category of best surgical team from South Asia.
The British Medical Journal awards have been instituted to honour the contributions of various teams in this region in different aspects of medical care delivery.
According to a release here, the awards are given after rigorous evaluation done in three stages by a reputed national and international jury team.
"There were more than 1000 entries for the various awards this year. The Amrita team won the award for the effort put in to successfully conduct the first and second double hand transplants in South Asia," it said.
The meticulous planning and the immense dedication of the entire team to achieve this demonstrating the capability of an Indian centre to match the international standards was appreciated, the release said.
"The impact of these procedures to promote organ donation in this region and the stimulus it gave to other centres in the country and Asia to start similar programme which is of immense benefit to the people who are suffering from loss of limbs and other organs were also considered by the jury as factors to nominate the team for this years award," it said.
Dr Subramania Iyer presented the work and received the award, considered as the "Oscars" in health delivery management, on behalf of the entire team.
This is the second consecutive year that the Amrita Institute has won the award.
The Amrita pediatric cardiology team had won the award last year for their leadership activities in this field.
