QMedCONNECT: March 2011

QMedCONNECT Newsletter: March 2011

Dear friends,

Welcome to a new Financial Year, which also means "a fresh start". QMed Knowledge Foundation starts the new year with a new goal - "To make great doctors out of medical students".
Sounds far fetched? Intriguing? Well, we have actually chosen one way to help students become excellent doctors. (We know there are several other.) We have chosen "the path less trodden" - we wish to build excellence in medical literature utilization as an important component of research methodology.We wish to go all out to ensure that medical students learn a lot about medical literature - how to search, how to reference, how to publish and how to store whatever they use.

In the next few days we will launch the "Friends of QMed" program - which we have been working on for some time. At an institutional level, we will deliver lectures, train trainers who will be local resources and also work with libraries, to strengthen the "information infrastructure". For individuals, we will train and guide them whenever they use medical information for academics, research or patient care. The program is going through some finer detailing. Please do keep watching our website - www.qmedkf.org.in and our Facebook page www.facebook.com/QMedKF for updates. And once again "Special Thanks to UnLtd India, and our Consultant - Ms. Suchira Deengar for helping us conceptualize, plan and execute this change"

In the next couple of months, we will also be approaching funding agencies for support for the program. And if any of you can help with suggestions or contacts, it will make a great difference.

Vasumathi Sriganesh

Do You Know?

You can save your PubMed searche results in Excel. Run a search. Just below the search box, click Send to, choose File and then choose the last option CSV. Save the file. Start Excel, open the the CSV file, and follow directions to convert the comma separated text to an Excel file.

For those in the field of Reproductive Health and Neonatology

The Reproductive Health Library or RHL invites people to write commentaries on a specific list of Cochrane Reviews. The RHL includes Cochrane Reviews in the field, and also summaries of the same. There is a list of recently added reviews that need summaries written. Check here for more details
The instructions for authors who wish to write summaries are also provided in this page.

Forthcoming Training Programs/Lectures:

8th April 2011 UpToDate training session at SRMC, Chennai

12th April 2011 UpToDate training session at AIMS, Cochin

18th April 2011 Lecture on literature searching at the "Re-orientation Training Programme in Research Methodology" for Ayurvedic faculty, organized by the Dept of Clinical Pharmacology, TN Medical College & BYL Nair Hospital

30th April 2011 Lecture at a program for PG students on thesis writing - organized by the Childs Trust Hospital, Chennai

Other Events of Interest

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

Medicon 2011- May 11th - 14th 2011: Medicon is an annual international research conference for undergraduate medical students, organized in India. It presents a platform for young scientists and future doctors to meet, interact and present their research. 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

Dogra S.

Why your manuscript was rejected and how to prevent it?.

Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol;77:123-7.

For students of health sciences, young professionals or anyone who is writing for the first time, this article helps understand why a manuscript is rejected. The author gives a list of common reasons and also several points with crisp explanation as to how to avoid rejection. Two most important points that he mentions are to follow the "Instructions to authors" meticulously (it is surprising that many often do not!) and to have a positive attitude towards learning from reviewers' comments.

What we did – March 2011

Training Programs / Talks: Literature searching:

15th March, 2011 - UpToDate - at MIMS, Calicut.

24th March, 2011 - Lecture on literature searching at Pharmatech - organized by the Dept of Pharmacology & Therapeutics, KEM Hospital, Mumbai

27th March, 2011 - Lecture on literature searching at a Research Methodology workshop organized by the Aurangabad Ophthalmology Association, at MGM Medical College, Aurangabad.

Document Delivery of Journal Articles

In the month of March 2011, we delivered 131 articles to individual members, libraries and corporate clients. Overall, in this year, we delivered 1400 articles.

Funding

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

"You will find it a very good practice always to verify your references, sir!"

Martin Joseph Routh - Classical English Scholar (1755-1854)

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

We have added 25 new sites in March and the total number of sites is 3275.

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.