QMedCONNECT: October 2012

QMedCONNECT Newsletter: October 2012

Dear friends

We are delighted to share that our email and Facebook campaign to raise funds during the Joy of Giving request brought us donations of a little over Rs. 1 lakh! Among Indian donors, the amounts

varied between Rs. 300/- and Rs. 10,000/- and amongst NRIs from $50 to $1000. We are grateful to every donor not just for the money, but their faith in our goals and activities. Some have specifically written to us with words of appreciation.

With the funds that we had earlier received from SMLRT, Chennai, we have conducted two workshops and delivered one lecture. The feedback from each was excellent, and we are also working out on follow ups with participants to help with their difficulties.

I would love to share the experience of two other workshops I conducted this month. One was at the Kerala University of Health Sciences, Thrissur. I thank the VC and the Dean Research for coordinating this session and getting six principals and about 24 faculty members to attend. They were all full of enthusiasm and their participation was 100%. The other was at the University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi. Here I’d like to thank the faculty from the Medical Education Unit and the students who helped organize the event. This group of about 20 people included a range - from 3rd Semester students to Professors. They worked in mixed groups - students and faculty sitting together and solving queries. Very delightful! One of the best rewards I got was a coverage of the program on the very same day, in a PG student’s blog .

We announced a major change this month. We had earlier been asking for specific amounts as minimum donations (as minimum contributions), to become a Friend of QMed. We now ask for “any amount” that a Friend would like to donate for the cause. We believe this will specifically remove all barriers for students.

With all these developments, we are hoping to reach out all over India to share what we know and are also constantly discovering. We are optimistic in believing that the start of active fundraising, coupled with donations - small to large - from Friends, will help in our long term sustenance

Vasumathi Sriganesh

Help QMed GROW

Become a Friend of QMed to get help and to make a change!

How do you become a Friend of QMed?

If you are a member of INFORMER, you automatically are one. Others, click the link above and follow the few small, but important steps. Remember you can donate any amount you choose to! (INFORMER members need to fill the form too)

For those who genuinely can offer larger donations, it would make a big difference to help us take care of several costs that we incur for our lectures and workshops. (Space, LCD hiring, promotion costs, time costs and more)
Note: For our training programs, we do request participants for a small donation too. These amounts contribute to keeping our programs updated and for us to hand hold and support participants later. And they are like a “Guru Dakshina” too.

To make a donation, please go to http://qmedkf.org.in/aboutus/donations.htm for details. You will get the applicable IT Exemption for donations under Section 80G of the Indian Income Tax Act. We can accept overseas donations as we are registered for the FCRA

Do You Know?

Do you wish to share a collection of articles/ references with students/ colleagues? PubMed has a way. Login to My NCBI. (If you have not created an account, do it now). Choose your references after running a search or by any other means, from PubMed. Click “Send to” (just below the Search Box. Create your collection using an appropriate name. Click the Edit your collection link (just above your search results). Again, a little above your references, you have an option: “This collection is private, make it public”. Click the “make it public” link. You will get a URL for the collection. Share this URL with students / colleagues by email or any other means.

Forthcoming Training Programs on literature searching and reference management:

• PubMed - Nov 24th - Interactive, hands on half day workshop at Xaviers Institute of Management & Research. More details

If you would like to organize interactive hands on workshops on searching PubMed / Cochrane Library / Reference Manager Softwares, in your institution, do write to us at info@qmedkf.org.in If you wish to attend programs that we organize, do give us your details so that we could get in touch.

Forthcoming Lectures

• At Jaslok Hospital and BARC Hospital (dates to be finalized)

• At the World Ayurveda Conference (Preconference workshop) - 7th Dec 2012

Other Events of Interest

Public Health Foundation of India's events in November.More details

Workshop on Completing a Cochrane Systematic Review. 12-16 NOv 2012, Christian Medical College, Vellore. More details

Dec 17-21,2012 Cochrane Protocol Development Workshop, ACTREC, Mumba

Fourth National Bioethics Conference - Hyderabad - 6th - 8th December. More details

If you are organizing or know about other conferences, pre-conference workshops or training programs related to medical research, do let us know; we would like to include these in our website and newsletter.

Resources for You

Supercourse Lectures. Supercourse is a repository of lectures on Global Health and Prevention. if you wish to receive a copy, do write to us at info@qmedkf.org.in

Article of the Month

Clinical care improvement with use of health information technology focusing on evidence based medicine.
Peyman RH, Ahmadi M, Aziz R, Zahra S, Farahnaz S, Nader M.
Healthc Inform Res. 2012;18:164-70.

The article is about a survey of Residents in Iran to understand their perception about EBM. It is interesting that such studies are taking place in developing countries. In the study, 76% of residents felt that EBM can help improve clinical decision making process, and it is encouraging that they are learning early! We’d like to quote a couple of lines from the article:
“EBM is a tool for proper and efficient incorporation of the results of research in decision-making. Accessing and retrieving valid and reliable evidence is possible through the knowledge of proper electronic databases and systematic and purposeful search strategies. Lack of knowledge about the best available evidence is one of the main causes of application of various and controversial medical treatments”

We’d once again reiterate the importance of the need to know the right resources and strategies for accessing the best evidence!

What we did – October 2012

Lectures on literature searching / referencing /citing at

• Shri BMK Ayurveda Mahavidyalaya, Belgaum (October 13)

• Seth GS Medical College & KEM Hospital, Mumbai -(Workshop on meta-analysis, October 19)

• Indian Association of Pathologists and Microbiologists, Delhi Chapter (November 3)

Interactive workshops

• Lotus College of Optometry, Mumbai - PubMed Advanced (October 20)

• St. Georges Hospital , Mumbai - “How to write Thesis” with special focus on searching and writing references, using PubMed, Cochrane Library and Mendeley - Partially funded by SMLRT, Chennai (October 20)

• Kerala University of Health Sciences, Thrissur - Literature search & PubMed (October 31)

• UCMS, Delhi - Using PubMed, Cochrane Library and Mendeley to Search, Save, Store and Cite References (November 4)

At KUHS, Thrissur with Medical teachers

At UCMS Delhi, with students, interns, teachers and librarians

With PG students in Mumbai from three institutions. This one was organized by Dr. Akhil Goel (a recently qulified PG) and his team. We thank them for their efforts!

Document Delivery of Journal Articles

In the month of October 2012, we delivered 49 articles to individual members & libraries. The total number of documents delivered since April 2012 is 332.

Quote of the Month

This time we give you two definitions here. The definition of "Literature Search":

The methodical investigation of all published sources for information bearing on a usu. scientific or technological subject
Source - Merriam Webster Dictionary Online
A literature search is a systematic and explicit approach to the identification, retrieval, and bibliographic management of independent studies (usually drawn from published sources) for the purpose of locating information on a topic, synthesizing conclusions, identifying areas for future study
Source: The National Library of Medicine, USA’s NICHSR page

We’d like to add - It is NOT the activity of a quick random attempt to find free articles through generic search engines

Directory of Indian Medical Sites (www.indianmedicalsites.in)

We have added 25 new sites in the month of October and the total number of sites is 3765.

We invite volunteers to add new sites. If you would like to help, do write to us and we will send you a set of instructions that will make it easier for you to work. Please write "Volunteering for Indian Medical Sites" in the Subject of the email.