The pediatric cardiac team at AIMS, our hospital partner site in Kochi, India, won the prestigious British Medical Journal India/BMJ India Award for Quality Improvement in Healthcare for delivering “First World results in a Third World environment.”

This award, considered the “Oscars of Medicine,” is a testament to the remarkable leadership and teamwork at AIMS. Congratulations to R. Krishna Kumar, M.D., Gopalraj S. Sunil, M.D., Mahesh Kappanayil, M.D., Rakhi Balachandran, M.D. and everyone else on the AIMS pediatric cardiac team for this well-deserved honor–and to Veera Rajasekhar for her integral role as in-country India consultant for Children’s HeartLink.

The British Medical Journal is one of the world’s leading medical journals. It launched the BMJ Awards in the UK in 2009 to recognize excellence in healthcare, then added the BMJ Awards in India in 2014. The India awards were given to medical experts in 10 categories and were selected from almost 500 entries by a panel of eminent medical professionals. The awards ceremony was held in New Delhi on September 20.

AIMS has been a Children’s HeartLink hospital partner site since 2000 and received training and mentoring from medical volunteer teams from Boston Children’s Hospital, Lucile Packard Children’s Stanford and University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital. In 2012 AIMS was named our first Global Partner in Pediatric Care and Training for establishing itself as a world-class institution of medicine, academics and research, as well as becoming a regional training center.