Ashish Bhalla
MD, FRCP (Edinburgh), FRCP (Glasgow) MRCP, FACMT, FACEE, FICP, FICCM
Ashish Bhalla joined MGIMS in August 1986 and obtained his MD (Medicine) from his alma mater in December 1994. Briefly, he served as the faculty in the department of Medicine at MGIMS. In 2002, He moved to PGIMER Chandigarh as Assistant Professor in Department of internal medicine, after a 3-year stint as senior lecturer at Government Medical College (GMCH), Chandigarh. As of now, he is working as full-time professor of Internal medicine at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) at Chandigarh, India.
Ashish worked for close to two decades as in-charge of the Medical Emergency before taking over as unit head (Infectious disease), since the last three years. During his stint in the emergency, along with his colleagues, he spearheaded the academic movement of establishing Emergency Medicine as a specialty in in India. He is the founder fellow of Academic College of Emergency Experts in India (FACEE) and at present the executive board member. Ashish also serves as the core/expert group member of MCI/NMC, NBE for developing the core curriculum for MD emergency medicine specialty in India.
His interest in clinical toxicology was kindled by my first publication on food borne pesticide poisoning in 1997 under the guidance of Prof S P Kalantri. With the support and encouragement of his mentor (Prof Surjit Singh), he joined the executive board of Asia Pacific Association of Medical Toxicology (APAMT) in 2012 and later served as General Secretary (2013-2016) and President APAMT (2019-2020).
Ashish is a trained toxicologist (Commonwealth Fellow in Clinical toxicology) at Guy and St Thomas’ hospital London (201402015) under the guidance of Prof Paul Dargan and Prof Michael Eddleston). Over the years he has had the opportunity to work with many stalwarts in clinical toxicology, Prof Brent Morgan, Prof Ziad Kaazi (Georgia Poison center, Atlanta USA), Prof Kirk Cumpsten (Persident NACCT at VCU, Richmond USA), Col Horst Theirmann (President EAPCCT, Chief Institute of pharmacology and Toxicology Munich, Germany)- to name just a few. He has been a member of the EXTRIP 1 workgroup id emulsion workgroup, Activated charcoal workgroup and APAP workgroup and has published a series of articles elaborating utility of extracorporeal removal of toxins/poisons, role of activated charcoal, practice guidelines for the clinicians managing toxic alcohol outbreaks.
In 2017, Ashish was invited as “Pfizer Visiting Professor in Clinical Toxicology “at Emory University Atlanta, an honour conferred on the first Indian teacher in toxicology. Since 2014, in collaboration with CDC Atlanta, Emory University, CRDF USA he has been involved in imparting training across India, Middle East and Egypt in chemical hazards and chemical security program sponsored by the States department, USA. He is currently a member of the Global Toxicology Recommendation Collaborative (the Governance committee) and Global burden of disease group and have contributed to nearly 20 international publications with this group. He is also an international advisor to Middle East and North African toxicology collaborative and a faculty of Indus-Pakistan toxicology course.
He has worked and published extensively in clinical toxicology, emergency medicine, infectious diseases, acute pancreatitis, acute and chronic liver diseases. He has authored more than 400 journals, with 150,000 reads, 35,000 citations and an H Index of 47. He was associate editor of “Clinical toxicology” for two years, and associate editor for Asia Pacific Journal of clinical Toxicology, Indian Journal of Critical Care Medicine, Indian Journal of Critical Care Case Reports and International Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Ashish is recipient of fellowships of Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow, Academic College of Emergency Experts in India, Association of physicians of India and Indian society of critical care medicine. He has also been awarded Times Pioneer healthcare award in 2017, Arogya Kiran Award for international toxicology education in 2019, and Medial excellence award for emergency medicine in 2022.