QMedCONNECT: Highlights 

July 2021

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What do we have for you this month?

• Two important blog posts by our Founder

• Literature links on observances this month:
     Doctors' Day, World Zoonoses Day, World 
Hepatitis Day, ORS Day

• Useful Resources: Dimensions, Cureous, RemoteXs, Plan S and INASP

• Five interesting articles that came into our alerts this month.  

Updates from QMed

• We conducted four webinars for participants of QMedCourses and three at other events

• JIPMER Puducherry joins us for QMedCourses.

• AIIMS Bhubaneswar renews their access for a second year.

The QMed Team 

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From our Blog - Our CEO's Posts

Vasumathi

Vasumathi Sriganesh, in her blog posts this month highlights the importance of being trained for any profession. This includes the domain of "Information Sciences". While recognized formal qualifications have been the best measure for training, there are several experts in domains who may not formal qualifications. However, they have "studied" the domains in great detail. She stresses the need for trained Information Professionals in India.

Can a "compounder" give medical advice?

When I was a child many doctors had compounders who would make "mixtures" in a bottle, based on a note the doctors gave them. We would get the mixture and maybe powders and tablets with the prescription. I just checked online to see if there are doctors who have compounders now. Apparently some do!

So can a compounder give medical advice or treat a patient?  To most people the answer is obvious - and the question is rhetorical. A firm no. And not just about doctors, but it is reasonably obvious that one needs a civil engineer to build bridges and more.

Today we do learn about people without degrees and formal qualifications who made it big in life. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and many others. 

Read more.

"We do not have a qualified librarian"

Recently I had a chat with a faculty from a reputed medical college. At some point he said "We do not have a qualified librarian for our library". I almost said "What"?

But as I am training myself to respond and not react, I just said "Oh, okay". After our call, I thought about this. And I remembered reading an advertisement of another reputed medical college - which advertised for several posts including that of a librarian. And it mentioned that a library science qualification was not mandatory. I remember being shocked then. To me it was like asking for doctors for a medical centre and saying that a medical degree was not essential.

It is also a bitter truth that it is very difficult to get librarians of calibre today. It is extremely easy to blame library schools saying that the training they provide is not up-to-date for today's needs. It is a fact that several library schools ARE doing all they can to update their training and curriculum regularly. It may or may not be enough, but they are trying.

The problem today is the existence of a vicious cycle.

Read more.

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From our Social Media Posts- International Observances

International Days

The month of July has four observances. We searched PubMed for articles of interest in each of these areas. We have provided "PubMed search results" - which link to the search we did, retrieving reviews and systematic reviews that are available free.  

 

Doctors Day (in India) - 1st July -  Our FB post

World Zoonoses Day 6th July - PubMed results   Our FB post

World Hepatitis Day - 28th July - PubMed results   Our FB post

ORS Day - 29th July - PubMed results   Our FB post

 

From our Social Media Posts - Do You Know

 

Dimensions is a platform for millions of academic publications linked by over 1.4 billion citations and supporting funding, databases, clinical trials, patents, and policy documents.
It features a free version that includes all papers and datasets and rich contextual information – all of which are free for personal, non-commercial use. It houses about 100 million publications, ranging from scholarly journal articles to books and book chapters to preprints and conference proceedings. You can also look at the connected categories, donors, institutions, and researcher biographies. For more, visit the resource at https://www.dimensions.ai/     Our FB Post

Cureous is a platform created to support collaborative and open investigations based on common patient populations, shared research methodology, and the inclusion of patients as research collaborators. A genuine organization and management structure is a must for collaborative and open health research. If widely used, the Cureous platform has the potential to greatly expedite scientific investigation and discovery in health research. It is a non-profit venture with the goal of launching a next-generation digital research platform as a public service that is free and open to patients and researchers. For more, visit https://www.cureous.life/    Our FB Post

RemoteXs assists academic and research institutions  in maximising the use of valuable eResources and nurturing faculty and student research interests. A university's resources are often dispersed and difficult to obtain. As an alternative, RemoteXs provides  safe access to an institution's dispersed eResources, putting them under one roof, together with subscribed eJournals, eBooks, and all other eContent, at any time and from any location. Data backup services, mail server hosting, digital library site design, training, and support are among its main offerings. For more, visit https://remotexs.in/remotexs  Our FB Post

Plan S is an initiative for Open Access publishing. It requires that scientific publications which are the result of public grants-funded research shall be published only if they agree with the rules of Open Access journals or platforms. This includes encouraging subscription publishers to transform into open access platforms via "transformative agreements". This will make the published journals "transformative". A Transformative Journal (TJ) is a subscription/hybrid journal dedicated to becoming a fully open access journal in the near future. As an additional requirement, a Transformative Journal must give authors the chance to publish the original research in open access format, which will make the research available to all. At a time when good research is essential for health professionals to practice evidence based medicine, these journals could be of great help by providing open access content to quality research material. To know more, visit https://www.coalition-s.org/transformative-journals-faq/  Our FB Post

INASP is an international developmental organization that strives to provide evidence for policy and practise. Systematic evidence and research are important to find sustainable solutions in healthcare and other areas. INASP also conducts research, aims to improve global educational impact, and supports higher education and learning. To know more about their work, visit https://www.inasp.info/about For Information on their projects: https://www.inasp.info/projects  Our FB Post

From our Social Media Posts- Interesting Articles

Interesting Articles

 

Interesting articles that came up in our alerts this month

 

1. Kaur H, Kaur M, Bhattacharyya A, Prajapat M, et al. Indian contribution toward biomedical research and development in COVID-19: A systematic review. Indian J Pharmacol. 2021 Jan-Feb;53(1):63-72. doi: 10.4103/ijp.ijp_168_21. PMID

2. Raj P, Tejwani S, Sudha D, Muthu Narayanan B, et al. Ophthatome™: an integrated knowledgebase of ophthalmic diseases for translating vision research into the clinic. BMC Ophthalmol. 2020 Nov 10;20(1):442. doi: 10.1186/s12886-020-01705-5. PMID

3. Wadgave U, Khairnar M. Urgent need to tackle Covid-19 impact on academic research in India. Indian J Med Ethics. 2021 Apr-Jun;VI(2):1-2. doi: 10.20529/IJME.2021.003. PMID

4. Lefebvre C, Duffy S. Peer review of searches for studies for health technology assessments, systematic reviews, and other evidence syntheses. Int J Technol Assess Health Care. 2021 May 24;37(1):e64. doi: 10.1017/S0266462321000210. PMID

5. Clyne B, Walsh KA, O'Murchu E, et al. Using Preprints in Evidence Synthesis: Commentary on experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. J Clin Epidemiol. 2021 May 19:S0895-4356(21)00153-0. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2021.05.010. Epub ahead of print. PMID

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Lectures & Webinars this month

For registered participants of QMedCourses: Orientation / updates 

– 4th July – Foundation for Excellence
– 17th July – All individual registrants
– 22nd July – Karunashraya (Bangalore Hospice Trust)
– 28th July – Apollo Tele Health Services

At Research Methodology Workshops, Lectures on Literature searching & Reference management

– 26th July – MUHS workshop - 50 participants
– 27th July – MUHS workshop - 50 participants

Others:
– 22nd July – CASCADE Workshop by Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology of India, Lecture on Literature Search -  50 participants

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QMedCourses News

New Institution:

JIPMER Puducherry has joined us in July and will get access to our courses and the Resources Database

Renewal

We are very happy to share that AIIMS Bhubaneswar has renewed its subscription to QMedCourses. They were the first to enroll when we launched last year and this year they are back with us again! Special thanks to the Director Dr Gitanjali Batmanabhane for her kind words about our courses, Dr Rituparna Maiti who coordinates with us for all activities and to those who completed our courses and have given great feedback and suggestions!

We present some current statistics about the overall progress of our courses.

Course

Certified

Total Enrolled

Information Resources & Literature Searching (IRLS)

350

2760

Introduction to Referencing (IR)

230

1788

Mastering PubMed (PM)

136

2268

Reference Management with Mendeley (RMM)

112

2268

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Testimonials for QMedCourses

Course: Information Resources & Literature Searching 
I Just happened to listen to Dr Vasumathi in one of the webinar organized by NIPER Guwahati, from there I took the lead and was very impressed with the way Dr Vasumathi made things simple and clear. The course is simple and clear. Girish M S, Dept of Pedodontics, JSS Dental College & Hospital, Mysuru.

Course : Introduction to Referencing
The delivery of speech was amazing. I found this course very interesting. It was very informative and less time consuming. Overall, I would definitely recommend this to everyone! Ananya MP, UG Student, Deeksha Center for Learning, Bangalore

Course : Mastering PubMed
The course is very enlightening and it definitely enriched me. Roja Varanasi. Dept- Clinical Research, Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy

Course : Reference Management with Mendeley
I feel this course is very helpful and I think it will guide me in future course of my learning process. Jayanta Das, AIIMS Guwahati

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