As a founder member and past President, Kalra has contributed to setting up and strengthening the South Asian Federation of Endocrine Societies (SAFES).
Basal Dr Kalra has been abreast with the latest literature on insulin and has written several articles on their evolution and appropriate patient-centric use in different clinical settings.
[35] He has also extensively published on the use of pre-mixed insulin during the fasting period of Ramadan and in another paper addressed the use of this formulation in special situations from initiation to intensification.
[44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] Motivation, Technique, Counseling Dr Kalra has spearheaded several original studies focusing on understanding the prevailing insulin usage practices in the South Asian region.
[51][52][53][54][55] Dr Kalra has been instrumental in leading several manuscripts that have focused on regional best practices and recommendations highlighting the advancements in Insulin delivery devices, injection technique teaching methods, monitoring, and complication management.
[91][92] In addition to using national datasets he has been one of the regional lead investigators for his state in the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) funded –INDIAB Study.
[95] In a recently published paper from the Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey, he is the senior author of this largest series on the prevalence of childhood obesity from India.
He has emphasized on the use of traditional activities for improving physical function of patients with obesity.116,[121] [122] [123] Nutrition has been one of key areas of education and research for Dr Kalra.
[138] He has also published extensively to facilitate diagnosis of sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity in resource constrained settings and has spearheaded the write-up for a South Asian consensus on the same.
[149] Not only confined to the Indian Subcontinent but several advocacy related papers representing the challenges, concerns and need for larger collaboration between different countries have been published.143 [150] He is also a coauthor on the medical management of patients before and after undergoing bariatric surgery.
One of his earlier citations on this topic goes back to a paper he had spearheaded in 2013, where he described the role of a person-centered approach during insulin initiation and intensification, which indeed is one of the most challenging aspects during the clinical management of diabetes.79 Though a large body of his work has been focused on diabetes77,79,[166] he has applied concepts of this approach even in patients with other chronic metabolic disorders like obesity and other common endocrine disorders including hypogonadism and hypothyroidism.78 [167] [168] Dr Kalra has written about both menopause distress and late-onset male hypogonadism, not only simplifying their complex definitions but also in detail describing the person-centric thresholds, targets, tools, and techniques (management).167,168 He is also the lead author of a paper called Thyroid Tantrums in Teenagers, which reflects on many variations that can happen at this age, reflecting the underlying management, assessment, testing technique, associated biomedical illness, and training.
[176] Strengthening family support, social acceptance, and caring for the patient's emotions are other important components highlighted by Dr Kalra that provide good patient-centered care.69, [177] [178] Furthermore, the utility of indigenous methods for lifestyle change and personal hygiene has also been mentioned as a successful method for improving patient-centered care.123,166,[179] Dr Kalra has also proposed several frameworks that make it easy for the treating clinician to incorporate the above-mentioned principles in practicing person-centered patient care.129,161,162, [180] [181] These frameworks have attracted several citations in the literature.
The findings of this study will help to identify the disease burden, emergence of early-onset complications and dose titration patterns, and eventually, develop person-centered care and facilitate public health agencies to invest appropriate resources in the management of diabetes.182 Another large, multicentric international collaborative study called the DAWN (Diabetes Attitudes Wishes and Needs) project highlighted how cross-national benchmarking using psychometrically validated indicators can help identify areas for improvement and best practices to drive changes that improve outcomes for people with diabetes.183,184