QMedCONNECT: Highlights of June-July-August 2019

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From our Founder's Desk

 

MCI - Online Course in Research Methodology

MCI - Online Course in Research Methodology

We recently learned that the MCI had made it mandatory for PG students and faculty to complete an online course - Basic course in Research Methodology. From what I checked and understood, the course is of eight weeks duration and students can take a little longer to complete it. They do need to complete it within certain stages of their PG duration.

I checked the section "Literature Review". It is a half hour session. The session explains why one must do a literature review. It mentions some sources they must search. There is a short explanation about the use of Boolean operators and a brief mention about MeSH in PubMed. The session progresses to cover the need for critical appraisal and the steps for writing the review of literature section. The half hour session is thus a "sensitization" about two major areas of work in a thesis - literature searching and writing the literature review.

Once the "sensitization" is done with, the students still face a problem. HOW do they search? They have been told that they should go through the Tutorials in the PubMed site. I have a question about this. If that was the answer for "how to search PubMed", why is it that in about 22 years that PubMed has been free, people have not mastered the search process.

Forget mastering, most people do not know the basics.They do not know how to use Boolean operators, Fields and MeSH. The tutorials have been made assuming that the audience knows these basics.

So what is the need? More in-depth teaching about literature searching. Why not for other parts of the course? If you ask me, yes - every area requires more in-depth teaching. But, I also believe that for most of these aspects, there are faculty in medical colleges that can help and mentor more. For searching? Not really. And literature searching is the fundamental building block for any research project. If this is done wrong, the research is flawed.

And that is why QMed exists. To train the health sciences community in India to search right. I earnestly request everyone reading this, to prioritize learning how to search right. QMed has several options to learn and get mentored. Do grab them!

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Workshops

ICMR Regional Medical Research Centre Bhubaneswar

ICMR Regional Medical Research Centre Bhubaneswar

Date: 27-July-2019
Topic: PubMed Basics and Reference Management
Participants: 25

Total number of participants (over two days): 90
Filled in forms: 85

New to Mesh: 80; New to Fields: 79; New to Boolean operators: 77
Could use a Reference Manager before this workshop: 45
Felt that PubMed should be included in the UG curriculum: 57
Felt that Mendeley  should be included in the UG curriculum: 48

All participants appreciated the workshops very much. Couple of senior faculty expressed (verbally) that these workshops must be conducted in every ICMR centre!

 

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Lectures

Bhaktivedanta Hospital and Research Institute

Bhaktivedanta Hospital and Research Institute

Date: 14-Aug-2019
Topic: Literature Search
Total Participants: 60

The session had 60 participants – mixed audience of Clinicians, Research personnel and PG Students. Only one said that she had learned MeSH, Fields, and Boolean Operators earlier. None had known about Single Citation Matcher. 59/60 opined that these skills should be taught at the UG level; one felt that it should be introduced at PG level

Nair Hospital Dental College

Nair Hospital Dental College

Date: 31-July-2019
Topic: Literature Search

The session had 50 participants – PG residents. None had heard of MeSH, Fields, Boolean Operators and the Single Citation Matcher. All 50 opined that these skills should be taught at the UG level

Nair Hospital Dental College

KEM - UG Research Methodology Course

Date: 29-July-2019
Topic: Literature Search

The session had 60 participants – all UG students. One had heard of MeSH. None had heard about Fields, Boolean Operators and the Single Citation Matcher. All 60 opined that these skills should be taught at the UG level

KEM – Dept of Preventive and Social Medicine

KEM – Dept of Preventive and Social Medicine

Date: 25-July-2019
Topic: Literature Search

The session had 34 participants - First year residents. None had heard of MeSH, Fields, Boolean Operators and the Single Citation Matcher. All 34 opined that these skills should be taught at the UG level.

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From our Blog

ChemRxiv - a Preprint Archive

ChemRxiv - a Preprint Archive

ChemRxiv (pronounced 'chem-archive') is a free archive. One can search this archive to retrieve research on various categories of Chemistry research - including the areas of interest to health professionals. It also serves as a  repository where one can submit,unpublished preprints in chemistry and related areas. 

https://chemrxiv.org/

Any preprint archive allows researchers to share results with colleagues in the same field, for the purpose of discussion and receiving comments. This not only helps he research move on in better directions, but also helps researchers get comments before they submit the paper for publication in a journal. Most importantly it establishes a priority and precedence of any discovery.

This archive covers a vast area of Chemistry. 
Of interest to health professionals is the field of "Biological and Medicinal Chemistry", which further includes - Biochemistry Bioinformatics , Cell and Molecular Biology, Drug Discovery and Drug Delivery Systems and Microbiology

We would once again stress that when one has to do an extensive literature search, one must include searches from grey literature sources like these preprint archives

Access ChemRxiv at - https://chemrxiv.org/

ChemRxiv is co-owned, and collaboratively managed by the American Chemical Society (ACS), German Chemical Society (GDCh) and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Publishing an article on Health Professions Education

Publishing an article on Health Professions Education

Advice for authors from the editors of Perspectives on Medical Education : Getting your research published.

Varpio L, Driessen E, Maggio L.
Perspect Med Educ. 2018 Dec;7(6):343-347
doi: 10.1007/s40037-018-0483-0 ; PMID: 30488264; PMCID: PMC6283776

Do you find doing a health professions education (HPE) research difficult? And getting the paper published even more difficult? The editors of "Perspectives on Medical Education" share some great advice to help you.

Here are some of the key points for Authors to remember for getting their research published in journals given by editors of Perspectives on Medical Education

• Begin at the beginning: Know you target audience and make sure you submit your paper in the right manuscript category

• Position your context: Do write about your study within a broader context for readers outside your own institution/field

• Let the reader relate to your study: Provide sufficient details about the content as to what was done, where, why, and to whom so that the study results are understood and interpreted by the reader and can be related to their own context.

• Attract new readers: Try and include a scholarly conversation which may attract new readers

•  Focus!! On the methods!! : A peer reviewer will focus on three main areas – Methods and methodology used, If the topic is sufficiently current and how useful can it be to other users from different fields

And then the general stuff, but still important

• Avoid plagiarism, data fabrication and always comply with ethical review board guidelines

• Editors spend a lot of time reading the literature in order to be able to responsibly appraise your paper and hence you too need to be well-read and up to date about the topic you choose

To Point 7, we would add - do a proper literature search, find as recent references as possible and reference them correctly!

Finally - Be very open about the editorial decision. Editors and reviewers work hard to give you feedback, which is a *great learning resource* 

If you receive a negative feedback about your paper, take help from others who are not involved with the paper to interpret the instructions from the editor and reviewers. Do make the effort to work on it and make revisions  before re-submitting it to the journal or submitting the work to a new journal.

A great tip that they add is that volunteering to be a peer reviewer is an excellent way to become a better author. Wise indeed!

Contributed by -Dipti Suvarna and Vasumathi Sriganesh

ATS Methods in Epidemiologic, Clinical and Operations Research (MECOR) - January 27 - February 1, 2020

ATS Methods in Epidemiologic, Clinical and Operations Research (MECOR) - January 27 - February 1, 2020

MECOR India Program

The ATS MECOR 2.0 Program is a multi-level research methods training course intended for clinicians, investigators, academicians, and public health professionals who primarily work with pulmonary diseases. The objective of the MECOR Program is to prepare current or aspiring investigators, academicians, clinicians and public health practitioners to design and conduct research that is relevant to the needs of the settings in which they work.  The overall goal of the MECOR Program is to aid the improvement of global lung health through the development of local, country, and regional lung disease research capacity in low and middle-income countries.

Our CEO - Vasumathi Sriganesh has been a mentor for this program for several years.

For more information click here: https://www.thoracic.org/about/global-public-health/mecor-program/mecor-india/

Workshop on Foundations in Health Economics - December 03- 05, 2019

Workshop on Foundations in Health Economics - December 03- 05, 2019

Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Biostatistics Resource and Training Centre, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India, in collaboration with the Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA have organized a workshop on Foundations in Health Economics from 3rd December to 5th December 2019

The workshop will cover basic methods of health  economics, key evaluation issues and how to critically appraise health economic research  

This course is open to any health care provider, student, practitioner or teacher  

For more information click here
https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!topic/cmcbiostats/J8gTHktbY2g

Workshop on Clinical Trials: Basics and Specialised Topics - October 16-18, 2019

Workshop on Clinical Trials: Basics and Specialised Topics - October 16-18, 2019

Clinical Epidemiology

Unit, Biostatistics Resource and Training Centre, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India, in collaboration with the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact (previously Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics) at McMaster University, Ontario, Canada have organized a workshop on Clinical Trials: Basics and Specialised Topics from 16th October to 18th October 2019  

The focus of the workshop will be on principles and practices of controlled clinical trials, Sequential
Trials for benefit and futility, Adaptive Designs and Step wedge design

This workshop is intended for researchers working in Pharmaceutical Industries, medical, allied health professionals, nonmedical faculty and researchers actively involved in trials, or teaching.

For more information click here https://www.cmc-biostatistics.ac.in/eventdetails.php?id=367

Workshop on Qualitative Research Methods and Analysis from 29th - 31st August 2019

Workshop on Qualitative Research Methods and Analysis from 29th - 31st August 2019

Samarth  in  collaboration  with  SCARF (Schizophrenia Research Foundation)  is organizing  a Workshop on Qualitative Research Methods and Analysis from 29th – 31st August 2019 at SCARF (Schizophrenia Research Foundation) R-7A North Main, Anna Nagar West (Extn.), Chennai- 600 101, Tamil Nadu, India.

The focus of the program will be Qualitative

Research – theories & concepts, its uses, types of qualitative research methods and analysis.

This program is intended for Researchers, Post-graduate/Ph.D students, NGOs.

For more information click here http://samarthngo.org/workshops.php

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