Ten Years Later: Why Indian Systematic Reviews Still Miss the Mark

Ten Years Later: Why Indian Systematic Reviews Still Miss the Mark

Ten years have passed, but the quality of search strategies in Indian systematic reviews tells the same story — one of missed opportunities for true rigor.... Looking Back: The 2015 WAME Poster In 2015, I participated in a conference organized by the World Association of Medical Editors, in New Delhi, India. I had presented a poster titled “Systematic reviews in Indian publications. How many are really systematic reviews?” At that time, my co-authors and I analyzed about 147 results retrieved from PubMed — articles with the words “Systematic review” in the title, appearing in Indian journals only. With not very…
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What Happens to PubMed When a Shutdown Looms?

What Happens to PubMed When a Shutdown Looms?

An easy-to-read summary of Hilda Bastian’s post on PubMed and the US Government Shutdown Every now and then, something happens in the world of health information that makes all of us — librarians, researchers, teachers — sit up straight. Recently, a message on PubMed’s home page did just that. It mentioned the possibility of disruption due to a US government shutdown. And for anyone who depends on PubMed daily, that’s a scary thought! Hilda Bastian, who often writes excellent, evidence-informed posts about science communication, explored this in her blog — “Tracking Shutdown Impact and Changes at PubMed”. I read it…
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The Beginnings of our Evidence Based Searching

The Beginnings of our Evidence Based Searching

I would like to share a story of the year 2000. It actually is a part of the genesis of QMed. In that year, I had attended my first ever International Conference (the ICML or International Congress on Medical Librarianship). That year it was in London. I also attended a preconference workshop on “Critical Appraisal Skills” by a well known Informationist Prof Andrew Booth I have no hesitation in saying that this was a turning point in my career. I not only learnt the basics of Critical Appraisal, but for the first time, I understood that one could search the literature to…
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