QMedCONNECT: February 2012

QMedCONNECT Newsletter: February 2012

Dear friends,

We have great news to share with you. We have just got our registration for FCRA completed, and are now eligible to get foreign donation too! We are all absolutely delighted with this and will now make efforts and finding grants from abroad too.

Training being a major objective for us, we have been looking at every possible way to take things ahead to spread our programs. I believe Moodle is going to help us do lots for you! We have been experimenting with it and believe that we can help everyone learn the fine art of literature searching (and more) through our online programs. And with the MCI's directive of compulsory training in Research Methodology and Scientific Writing for PGs and faculty, we hope we can reach out to all of them through this channel.

It has been fun working with Moodle. With rich features, it makes us want to experiment thoroughly, but we also realize that it is important to get something ready at the earliest and then improve it as we go. The improvement, we are sure, will happen with valuable suggestions from all of you!

Medicon 2012, being organized by INFORMER has started its flurry of activity. We have offered to help with certain activities and of course our usual contribution of suggestions, advice and our shoulders! It is good to see that an initiative of an Undergraduate Research Conference "for the students and by the students" in 2009 has held well and is happening every year. Special thanks are due to to encouragement from Padmashri Dr. MG Deo and the ICMR for supporting the conference every year. Other student bodies are also making similar efforts; details of these are available in this newsletter.

This month we did one training program for a group of Obstetricians & Gynecologists in Mumbai. Thank you Dr Nikhil Datar for organizing this one. The group had senior consultants as well as residents - a total of about 30 participants. We received an oft repeated comment - "this program should be included in the curriculum"!

The article of the month is on healthcare information and the rural primary doctor. I am proud to mention that three student friends and I jointly wrote this one. The initiative was theirs and I was happy to contribute!

Vasumathi Sriganesh

Help QMed GROW

If you believe in our cause and efforts, do give us a donation - small or large. Every drop counts!

If you are a healthcare professional or student, you could become a "Friend of QMed". Becoming a "Friend" is like being a "donor member". You will get all the help that we can provide with our expertise. We request a minimum donation of Rs. 2000/- per year. For PG students we subsidize this to Rs. 1000/- and for UG students it is Rs. 500/- (if you are not a member of INFORMER)

Do check out our website www.qmedkf.org.in for details.We accept donations by cheques in favour of Quality Medical Knowledge Foundation. You may send the cheques to our address, or you could ask us for our account details to do a transfer. You will get the applicable IT Exemption for donations under Section 80G of the Indian Income Tax Act.

Do You Know?

"Where's the best evidence"? A crisp presentation by Dean Giustini - UBC Biomedical Branch librarian at the Vancouver hospital

http://www.slideshare.net/giustinid/wheres-the-best-evidence-2010

This is a compilation of some of the best EBM resources. Dean Giustini has also indicated for each resource, whether it is free or subscription based, and what type of resource it is. In our future issues, we will describe some of them in more detail, in this section.

Forthcoming Training Programs on literature searching and reference management:

Date to be announced: Literature searching & PubMed - for UG students attending a Clinical Research Workshop at KEM Hospital

17th-18th March - Konference, Kolkata - Talk on literature searching

Other Events of Interest

South Asian Cochrane Network & Centre. More details

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

BMSRI's Konference - March 17-18 - Kolkata. More details

MSA-India's International Interactive Workshop - March 31-April 3, Mumbai. More details

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

Short course in Biostatistics - May 14 - June 22, 2012, at CMC, Vellore. More details

INFORMER's Medicon 2012 - July 11-14, 2012, at MGIMS, Sevagram, Wardha. 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

UpToDate. We, as trainers of UpToDate - [www.uptodate.com], can give one month complimentary trial passwords. Do write to us at info@qmedkf.org.in if you would like to have one.

Article of the Month

Chatterjee P , Biswas T, Datta A, Sriganesh V

Healthcare information and the rural primary care doctor

South African Medical Journal 2012; 102:138-9

The article is about "information deficiency' or the lack of availability of evidence based information, the "know how" to access the most relevant literature and to appraise the same. Absence of well maintained electronic health records is another issue and of course in the rural setting almost all of this is non existent. However HIFA-2015 (Healthcare Information for All by 2015) is a global forum, the members of which constantly discuss these issues and are working hard to find some solution to take care of this paradoxical problem in the age of technology.

What we did – February 2012

Training Programs / Talks: Literature searching/ Consultative meetings

February 19 - Training program - Literature searching - PubMed and Cochrane Library for a group of Ob-Gyn specialists and residents

Document Delivery of Journal Articles

In the month of February 2012, we delivered 80 articles to individual members & libraries. The total number of documents delivered since April 2011 is 720.

Quote of the Month

Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do
-Johann von Goethe-

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

We have added 25 new sites in the month of February and the total number of sites is 3550.

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.