QMedCONNECT: Highlights of April 2019

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From our Founder's Desk

Dr Avinash Supe helps validate my thoughts for QMed!

Dr Avinash Supe helps validate my thoughts for QMed!

In April, I had a great meeting with Dr Avinash Supe – one that lasted almost for an hour. I have known Dr Supe since around 1999/2000, and he has been a friend and well-wisher for years – something that I am very grateful for. When I met him in April, he helped me validate my thoughts, dreams for QMed, and more.  

Here are my Questions and his Answers:

VS: Could you frame the problem that QMed addresses, in your words?

Dr Supe: In the medical and health sciences domain many people do not know how to search the literature and reference correctly and you teach them this.
But the problem goes beyond that. There is an underutilization of Libraries and library services. The quality of our publications, research and knowledge of validity of research have to improve a lot. The lacuna in skills in literature searching is one important reason.  
Also, the goal of a medical / health sciences teacher is to improve knowledge in the areas of Education, Research, Clinical Practice and Administration/management, and literature searching is important in all these areas.
An effective literature search would also help clinicians to select appropriate updated management/ treatment modalities for an individual and help them to treat him/her better.

You are working on tackling this lacuna and are actually working at improving all these areas by filling in the missing skills.

VS: If I made myself available in an institution for one day in a week - what should I offer?

Dr Supe: Ideally you should offer a 10 session course, for 2 or 3 hours availability once a week. In 10 sessions you should be able to teach them the literature searching components, in groups so that they become more confident in this area. Create a Google Group of the participants. Before a session give them an exercise. During the session, discuss it and tell them how they could improve / learn more / correct mistakes. Give them one more example to work on by the next lesson. Also give them another exercise which you will cover in the next week. Residents and teachers need this in addition to your lectures which only tell them what they do not know!

VS: Should I consider offering this to an institution as part of our Online Courses package?

Dr Supe: That sounds like a good idea

VS: What more can we do to ensure that literature searching and referencing is given its due importance?

Dr Supe: People have still not understood the full importance of these two areas so you need to keep teaching for quite some more time

VS: To introduce this in the curriculum - we need enough teachers and knowledgeable people - both librarians as well as PG teachers.  We believe that our courses being online will help create these. Could you give any more ideas?

Dr Supe: You need to present your work at conferences - especially like the NCHPE, and write more about your work, so that the teachers decide to learn more.

VS: How do we quickly ensure that the Online Courses that we offer on Literature Searching and Referencing, are taken up by many institutions?

Dr Supe:  I guess you may need to start with some private institutions where the processes and approvals may be easier.

Thank you Dr Supe for all these inputs! I really value them and look forward to moving ahead. 

Read more.

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From our Blog

Framing the title and abstract of your paper

Framing the title and abstract of your paper

Writing the title and abstract for a research paper: Being concise, precise, and meticulous is the key Tullu MS. Saudi J Anaesth. 2019 Apr;13(Suppl 1):S12-S17. doi: 10.4103/sja.SJA_685_18. Have you come across titles / abstracts from search results that sounded very promising, but when you read the article, the content did not match what you first saw? Or have you come across …

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PubMed Labs

PubMed Labs

PubMed Labs is a test site where the NLM/NCBI are experimenting with new features and tools that may eventually incorporate in PubMed.  They are looking for inputs on these features / tools and the final incorporation will be based on the inputs they receive – so what you see today may get included as it is, or in a revised …

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5th National Level Management Development Program on Data Analysis through SPSS – 9th May to 11th May 2019

5th National Level Management Development Program on Data Analysis through SPSS – 9th May to 11th May 2019

School of Commerce Studies, Jain (Deemed-to-be University) is organizing 5th National Level Management Development Program on Data Analysis through SPSS from 9 to 11 May 2019 The program focus will be on basics of Data Analysis and basic Statistical Techniques, Artificial Neural Networks and (SEM) Structural Equation Modeling through AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures). This program is intended for Business …

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Workshops

All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneswar

Date: 27-April-2019
Topic: PubMed Basics and Reference Management
Participants: 45

More than 40/45 participants said that they had learned about Mesh, Fields and Boolean operators in this workshop. Only around 11 said that they could use a Reference Manager easily before this workshop. Around 30/45 said they felt that the PubMed workshop should be included in the UG curriculum, and 25/45 felt that the use of a Reference Manager should …

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All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneswar

Date: 26-April-2019
Topic: PubMed Basics and Reference Management
Participants: 45

Majority (36/40 filled feedback forms) of participants mentioned that they had learned about, Mesh, Fields and Boolean operators in this workshop. Many felt that these workshops should be introduced in the UG curriculum

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Workshops@QMed

Date: 11-April-2019
Topic: PubMed Basics and Reference Management
Participants: 1

It was overall an amazing experience. Very informative and hands on experience gave me a very good idea about PubMed and Mendeley. Would definitely come back for more such workshops. Thank you so much for your time and patience

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Lectures

FAIMER 2019

Date: 20-April-2019
Topic: Literature Search
Participants: 16

Out of 16 participants, six had learned about  MeSH earlier, three had learned about Boolean operators and 7 had learned about Fields. Overall a very heartening response from this group of medical teachers working towards advancing their knowledge about the Medical Education field. All 16 agreed that this learning should be introduced in the UG courses

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ACTREC / Tata Memorial

Date: 24-April-2019
Topic: Plagiarism and Copyright
Participants: 35

The lecture was followed by a bunch of questions and good discussions!

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ACTREC / Tata Memorial

Date: 24-April-2019
Topic: Literature Search
Participants: 35

All participants agreed that this learning must be introduced at the UG level

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Testimonials

PG Student, Mumbai

It was overall an amazing experience. Very informative and hands on experience gave me a very good idea about PubMed and Mendeley. Would definitely come back for more such workshops. Thank you so much for your time and patience

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