QMedCONNECT: June- July 2011

QMedCONNECT Newsletter: June - July 2011

Dear friends,

We have come back to you after a gap and have had to combine the June and July issues. I take it as a good sign - we've had some developments that kept us on the tips of our toes!

In the beginning of June, I had an opportunity to visit the Alfred Goldschmidt Medical Sciences Libraryin Israel and spend a day with a team of enthusiastic librarians. We had a delightful knowledge exchange and it was nice when at the end of the day they asked me "Do you have to go back to India this Sunday"? I wished I could have had more time there too. What really impressed me was their current change mission. They are weeding out a large collection of print journals based on all the electronic access that they have. They are doing this with a renewed vision of the library as a "Place for knowledge exchange" and hence creating an atmosphere and facility for discussions, research and teaching. The day I spent with people who I felt were a wonderful team, made me wish I could work with them for at least a month!

I had an opportunity to participate in the SNDT University's Valedictory function of the Golden Jubilee Celebration of the SHPT School of Library Science. I was one of few invitees to present my views on what is expected of library science graduates. We also had a panel discussion and the School has taken inputs to use for their curriculum planning.

I was also invited to two consultative meetings. One was for "DHARA" [www.dharaonline.org], a very interesting portal on Ayurveda Research, being created by the AVTAR, Ayurvedic Trust, Coimbatore. With Ayurvedic doctors from premier institutions and Dr Nandini Kumar of the National Institute of Epidemiology. we had interesting deliberations on how to take DHARA ahead. The other was for an initiative to promote the use of EBM resources; more about this as things take shape!

June and July had us involved in five lectures and two Training workshops. I had the pleasure of being in Manipal University in end July for four of the events mentioned. This resulted in keen interest from them to have us share expertise with them. We hope to take things ahead!

Vasumathi Sriganesh

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This month, we have created a detailed PubMed tutorial accessible to our friends. We will soon be creating tutorials for other resources as well.

Do You Know?

The National Union Catalog of Scientific Serials in India -http://nucssi.niscair.res.in/ is a catalog of journals available in India's Science libraries. Created by NISCAIR, New Delhi, it allows us to search for the availability of a journal title in various libraries. One can search for the title and restrict it to a city of choice. Various other search options are available. This tool needs to be used extensively to find articles in libraries across the country and to enable resource sharing by libraries.

Forthcoming Training Programs/Lectures:

August 14, 2011. Lecture on literature searching for UG students attending Illuminati, Pune.

August 18, 2011. Lecture on literature searching at KEM Hospital, Mumbai for faculty at a Research Methodology workshop

August 19, 2011. Lecture for students of RIMS, Ranchi

August 19, 2011. Workshop for students of RIMS, Ranchi

August 20, 2011. Lecture at the 20th Annual Conference of the Neurotrauma Society of India

August 24-25, 2011. Train the trainer program at Govt Medical College Surat (to be finalized)

August 27, 2011. Workshop on literature searching for Students of M.Optom program of the Lotus College of Optometry

Other Events of Interest

Illuminati - AFMC Pune - Program for UGs on Research Aug 13 and 14, 2011. More details

Osmecon 2011 - Prog for UGs on Research. Sep 25 and 26, 2011. More details

South Asian Cochrane Network & Centre - Workshops on Systematic Reviews - More details

Clinical Research Workshop Series. Conducted by the Public Health Foundation of India. 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 - , 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

Ilic D, Tepper K, Misso M.

Teaching evidence based medicine literature searching skills to medical students during the clinical years - a protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

BMC Med Educ. 2011 Jul 28;11(1):49

This article is a protocol for an RCT which will be conducted in the Monash University, to assess the need, importance and various other aspects of teaching 3rd MBBS students about how to ask a focused question and how to do a literature search for EBM. The comparison will be done between a study group that receives training and a control group that does not. The basis on which the study has been planned, appears to be that if students are taught such skills, as soon as they are in a clinical setting, they will find the practice of EBM much easier when they are doctors. The study aims to measure the impact of this program. The article is very relevant to QMed's vision, mission and goals, and also to the MCI's Vision 2015 document where they have mentioned that medical students must learn the art of literature searching and EBM

What we did – June - July 2011

Training Programs / Talks: Literature searching/ Consultative meetings

June 11 - Lecture at the Bombay Orthopedic Society's Research Methodology Workshop.

June 16 - Lecture for medical teachers undergoing the FAIMER Fellowship Program

July 06 - Participation at the SNDT University's Department of Library Sciences Valedictory function

July 10 - Consultative meeting of DHARA - "Digital Helpline for Ayurvedic Research Articles", at Coimbatore

July 20 - Consultative meeting on promotion of Evidence Based Medicine, at Delhi

July 25 - Lecture at the MUHS, Pune for medical teachers

July 27 - Lecture for UG medical students at Manipal University

July 28 - Workshop for faculty, students and staff of the Manipal Virus Research Centre

July 28 - Workshop for Health Sciences faculty of Manipal University

July 29 - Lecture at a CME organized by the Dept of Surgery, Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore

Document Delivery of Journal Articles

In the month of June & July 2011, we delivered 107 articles to individual members & libraries. The total number of documents delivered since April 2011 is 186.

Funding

The easiest way of supporting us is to become a "Friend of QMed". 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. You will get the applicable IT Exemption for donations under Section 80G of the Indian Income Tax Act.

Quote of the Month

Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.

Henri Poincare
French mathematician & physicist (1854 - 1912)

Thank you Dr. Urmila Thatte from KEM Hospital for sharing this quote! Dr. Thatte adds "Keep an open mind when you do research"

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

We have added 50 new sites in the month of June & July and the total number of sites is 3375.

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.