QMedCONNECT: JAN 2015

QMedCONNECT Newsletter: January 2015

Dear friends

The new year began with January having two exciting events for QMed. In the first week, I was in Calicut for a two day CME for budding Family Physicians. This was organized by the Kerala Chapter of the Academy of Family Physicians of India. I was privileged to give a two hour talk on searching and managing references. What touched me was that the hosts felt the importance of this topic and also conveyed this to the audience. I enjoyed the two day session where PG students of Family Medicine and other young practitioners had great interactions about this field. Students who initially had questions as to whether there is a future in this field went away feeling more convinced about it!

In the middle of Jan we had Ms Pamela Sieving and Ms Bette Anton visit QMed. Pam and Bette are very active librarians in the field of Vision Sciences. Bette retired from her job about a year ago, and Pam retired at the end of 2014, but retirement does not stop them contributing to the profession. They have both been helping librarians and doctors in the premier Ophthalmology institutions in the country for some time now. We enjoyed having them visit QMed. While both had an idea about QMed’s work, they enjoyed getting to know us better and we were delighted when at the end of the visit they felt that the United States needs librarians who would work the way QMed does – reaching out to those who do not reach a library. (This is in addition to excellent work being done by medical librarians out there).

Vasumathi Sriganesh

Story:

Ms Rachana Jasani- Doctoral student, Department of Nephrology, KEM Hospital, Mumbai, shares her story

Rachana Jasani

Ms Rachana had attended QMed’s workshops on PubMed and Mendeley while pursuing her Phd. She says:

“I have attended two workshops of QMed, one on PubMed Basics and the other on Reference Management using Mendeley.

The literature search workshop has helped me gain a systematic approach to scientific content. Prior to this I had no formal education on scientific journals and access to its contents. Most often, my situation was like driving through all lanes but landing nowhere. What I was lacking was a structured and organized searching ability which I could master through the literature search lectures of QMed. I wish these lectures were a part of education system, nevertheless, they can be added now as well if brought to limelight.

Reference management is a highly skilled approach of saving as well as reproducing all our references whenever required. It also has a tool of linking our references with internet which ensures safety against technical threats like loss of data from computer or hard disk, etc”.

What we did – January 2015

I) Talks on literature searching / referencing /citing at

• The First State Conference and CME organized by Academy of Family Physicians of India, Kerala at Calicut – Jan 3

• LTMMC (Sion Hospital), Mumbai – Jan 9

• Research Methodology Workshop organized by the Indian Journal of Ophthalmology (IJO), Mumbai – Jan 10

• Government Dental College, Mumbai – Jan 12

• TNMC & Nair Hospital, Mumbai – Jan 21

• Podar Ayurvedic College, Mumbai – Jan 28

• Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for the Hearing Impaired, Mumbai – Jan 29

• Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital, Anesthesiology dept, Mumbai, – Jan 29

• Sri Manakula Vinayagar Medical College and Hospital, Pondicherry – Jan 31

II) Workshops@QMed

1. PubMed Basics Workshop for a UG student.

QMed Participates

Vasumathi Sriganesh attended two workshops in January

Workshop on Certification Tools conducted by Guidestar India.
This one focused on how non-profits could be ready with voluntary disclosures and transparency details, so that funders could get all these details. Makes for easier fund raising!
Workshop on Governance conducted by CAP.
This workshop conducted by CAP – Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy – was more of an informal one, where several NGOs discussed good governance and experts from CAP gave us additional inputs