QMedCONNECT: May 2015

QMedCONNECT Newsletter: May 2015

Dear friends

May is a lean month with most medical colleges having vacations. This means a slightly less busy month for us, which of course also means that we focus a lot more on planning and other internal work. We did of course have one workshop for a group of gynecologists – a very enthusiastic group. And then one workshop for two PG students held at office. This one was also observed by a corporate volunteer who with some of his colleagues, is helping us with some of our brainstorming. This month, I had the pleasure of attending the TedxWomenGateway event on the 29th of May. Most people are familiar with Ted talks on www.ted.com. Tedx talks are local events organized locally on the same lines as Ted talks. This one was an event covering very special women speakers and hence the event was called TedxWomenGateway. I heard a dozen women talk about themselves, their work and a take away message. Each one was a gem. The next Tedx event is on December 5, 2015 and I would strongly recommend that people register for it at the earliest, if you wish to pick up ideas and also get a heavy dose of inspiration!

Vasumathi Sriganesh

Do You Know

That there are items in PubMed that do not appear to have abstracts, but actually do. Check out this one –
The social context of family size preferences and fertility behaviour in a south Indian village

You do not see an abstract – right? Now click the word “Abstract” just below the PubMed logo and just above the title. Change the display to Abstract text. And now you will see an abstract!

Majority of the abstracts in PubMed are written by the respective authors. Occasionally, someone else writes an abstract for a specific record (in the absence of an author written abstract). Such abstracts are tagged as “Other abstracts” and you can see them only with the “Abstract text” or the “Medline” formats of display. In this case, the abstract is written by “PIP” – the Population Information Program, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

To know more about “Other abstracts”, click here

Interesting Reading

The article – Choosing the Right Journal for a Scientific Paper

Bavdekar SB, Save S. Choosing the Right Journal for a Scientific Paper. Journal of The Association of Physicians of India. 2015; 63: 56-9

We are often asked the question about how one chooses a journal to send a paper to. Drs Bavdekar and Save answer this question pretty well, by describing several factors that influence this choice. The most important factor being the target audience. Other factors covered are whether the journal is peer reviewed, what the acceptance rate is, whether it is indexed, what the impact factor is, whether there are costs associated and more. A very thorough coverage! I only wish they had covered one bit in more detail. While talking of “indexed” journals, there seem to be no clear answers as to which indexes are considered important and which are not. Even the MCI website does not have clear answers to this question, while the MCI expects people to have publication in “indexed journals”.

Story/Participant Experience

Ms. Bianca S. Honnekeri, 3rd MBBS Student, Grant Medical College and Sir J.J. Group of Hospitals, Mumbai shares her story:

As someone who hopes to someday practice evidence-based medicine, acquiring a degree of efficiency at gathering relevant evidence is a pressing concern. Literature reviews, finding evidence, treatment guidelines, and even simply reading a journal article of interest- they’re all tasks that bode a sense of tedium, because finding precise or relevant material is not always easy. My friends and I decided to do this workshop to make our foray into the world of evidence-based medicine slightly less daunting at the outset.

By the end of the workshop, I was overawed. Simply tweaking a few settings in PubMed throws up a goldmine of information, and a few clicks more- and it has been reformatted for citation too! Learning to use Mendeley means careful archiving of material is done almost automatically.

I am very grateful to the QMed Foundation for changing the way I feel about reading scientific literature- rather than inspiring a sense of dread, I now deeply look forward to it. I recommend this workshop for every student who wants PubMed to be a faithful ally!

What we did – May 2015

I) Workshops@Institutions

1. We conducted a half- day workshop on PubMed for a group of gynaecologists at Ahmedabad.

II) Workshops@QMed

Reference Management with Mendeley

We conducted one workshop@QMed for two PG students.

Participant Feedback

After attending this session, I am sure I will be able to save many professional hours that I might have wasted in just trying to find lost articles to cite. This session by Vasumathi Ma’am was so interesting and simplified that I am confident that I will be able to use it easily and right from day one of learning it. – Dr Sejal Bheda, PG student, Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital.
This course has made a difference in the way that I search. This will definitely help me educationally and in my daily practice. – Dr Anagha Walavalkar

QMed Participates

Fatima and Lakshmi attended a one-day GYAN (Get Your Answers Now) session on ‘Be a Leader’ organized by I-Volunteer, Mumbai. The two speakers for the workshop shared interesting inputs on employee engagement, being a team player and giving effective feedback. The topic was dealt with in an informal way focusing more on the participant’s experiences rather than mere theory. This made the entire workshop a great learning experience.