Dear friends
No, we did not disappear! Many of you asked me what happened to the Newsletter – and thank you all, for asking! Well it was a mix of reasons for which we could not do this since March. The most important reason was a technical one, and then my trip to the US this year was a little more “time demanding” than ever before. January to April was spent in creating our blog, revamping our website and also theIndian Medical Sites. Redoing websites is about as challenging as creating new ones. So while we got them all launched by end April, we had more challenges with planning the “Newsletter Blog balance”. Now all’s well that ends well – and we are back on track! We thank Mango Media for all the professional services for our websites
May 2013 was a great month. I visited the USA to attend the Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association of the US. I attended two preconference workshops (both technology oriented!) and then presented about QMed’s workshops and also a poster about a new career option for “Informationists” who can actually help tackle one element of the doctor-patient ration problem. This was of course very exploratory but surprisingly got several encouraging comments, and the most important was the offer for guidance and advice from a Senior Informationist of the National Institutes of Health Library!
The best part of the Conference was my getting the “International Clinical Librarian’s Conference – Evidence into Practice Award” at a grand Awards Ceremony. And the congratulatory wishes from so many delegates. I also had the pleasure of being part of a panel in an event for developing countries, and participating in activities related to developing country initiatives. After the conference I visited the National Library of Medicine (birthplace of PubMed) for a day, and also the National Institutes of Health Library for another day. The learnings at both places were noteworthy. At the NLM I shared QMed’s initiatives with a group of about 20 librarians. And then after a holiday, I visited the SUNY Downstate, where I did a brief presentation to the Attendings and Residents of the Pediatric Neurology Department.
Back in India in June, I picked up the threads of planning with colleagues. And now, with things falling in place, we are all set to plan for lots more. More workshops and very importantly E-Learning Modules are coming your way! And then we plan to introduce lectures for patients and consumers to search right. Do track our blog and stay updated!
Vasumathi Sriganesh
