QMedCONNECT: January 2010

QMedCONNECT Newsletter: January 2010

Dear friends,

January was a very exciting month for QMed. We had our Second Anniversary Event at the Hall of Quest, Nehru Planetarium. It was a great success. We presented an idea to several medical institutions by which they'd share their library collections effectively. The idea was much appreciated by key people from each institution.

In the second week I had an opportunity to attend the 8th Winter Symposium of the CMC Vellore, on "Evidence for Better Health". It was an event where I learnt a lot, gave a lot and made several new contacts - professionals and medical students. I was particularly lucky to meet Dr. Binayak Sen who gave a thought provoking keynote address on Equity and Evidence for healthcare - emphasizing the need for evidence-based healthcare for the marginalized population.

What I enjoyed most in the event was being deeply involved in planning a special "Introduction to EBM" program for students. I was fortunate to be part of "The Imperfect Ten" - faculty from various parts of India and the world who planned this session over email and made it a huge success.

I also conducted two PubMed training programs - one in Pune, and one in Vellore. Overall a very satisfying month!

Vasumathi Sriganesh

Do You Know?

The Clinical Trials Registry- India (CTRI) is an online register of clinical trials being conducted in India. Any researcher who plans to conduct a trial involving human participants, is expected to register the trial in CTRI before enrollment of the first participant. Registration of trials in the CTRI is free. All registered trials will be made publicly available. The CTRI will be searchable by anyone free of charge.

The CTRI has been set up by the ICMR's National Institute of Medical Statistics (NIMS) and is funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) through the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The vision of the CTRI is to ensure that every clinical trial conducted in the region is prospectively registered. More at www.ctri.in

Other Events of Interest

1. South Asian Cochrane Network, CMC, Vellore - Systematic Review Protocol Development Workshop: February 9-12, 2010. More details

2. Public Health Foundation of India. Clinical and Epidemiological Research Workshop Series

• 16th - 19th February, 2010 (Tuesday to Friday): Workshop 2: Case-Control Study: Basics and Beyond

• 16th - 19th March, 2010 (Tuesday to Friday): Workshop 3 : Clinical Trial Designs

• More details

• 20th - 23th April, 2010 (Tuesday to Friday): Workshop 4: Conduct and Reporting of Systematic Reviews of Randomized Controlled Trials

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.

Our Forthcoming Program

PubMed - Basics. Churchgate, Mumbai

Our next PubMed Basics program will be held on Sunday, February 28, 2010 between 9.00 AM and 1.00 PM at Pushp Kunj, Gr. Floor, A– Road, Churchgate (West) Mumbai - 400 020.

Registration:

Limited registrations - maximum of 30 participants - on a first-come-first-served basis. The Fee is Rs. 500/- for students (proof of studentship required) and Rs.1000/- for other health professionals. Registrants from the Pharma industry will be charged Rs. 1500/-. Payment can be made by cash, cheque or demand draft payable to "Quality Medical Knowledge Foundation". Please download the registration form from our website.

We offer a subsidy of Rs. 250/- for the first 10 participants - either students or health professionals. To avail of the subsidy, advance payment is a must. Do call us on 40054474 to check if you are eligible. Additionally we offer a 50% subsidy to past participants who wish to repeat this program

We invite medical colleges/hospitals to contact us for organizing a program for PG students, faculty and health professionals. Please check out details at our website.

Resources for You:

1. MDConsult. Doctors in India can avail of access to MDConsult at special rates, thanks to the efforts of the HELP Library. With MDConsult, you get access to about 50 reference books, 70 journals (including Clinics), Practice guidelines and lots more. For more details click here.

2. Supercourse Lectures. Supercourse is a repository of lectures on Global Health and Prevention designed to improve the teaching of Prevention. Supercourse is a library of 3623 lectures in 30 languages. It has been produced at the WHO Collaborating Center University of Pittsburgh, with core developers Ronald LaPorte and others.

Our Foundation has received a CD of entire content, and are distributing it for free to institutions during our training programs and also to anyone requesting for the same. This will be useful if you do not wish to view all lectures on the Internet for various reasons. Please get in touch with us at info@qmedkf.org.in if you wish to receive a copy.

Article of the Month

Eapen BR.

What if your dissertation aims fail?

Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol 2010; 76:80-2.

This article talks of an extremely important issue of negative results in dissertation research, but could be applicable to clinical trials too. Almost always negative results in research remain unpublished and not only does the medical world remain uninformed about such important findings, but the resources spent on such research get completely wasted. The article tells us about different preprint servers, in which authors can publish their results. We also learn about the advantages and issues related to information in preprint servers. A must read for every postgraduate student and anyone involved in medical writing.

What we did – January 2010

Foundation Day - Jan 8, 2010

We celebrated our Second Anniversary on the 8th of January at the Hall of Quest, Nehru Planetarium. Around 40 people joined us for the occasion.

The highlight of the program was an initiative that we planned- "Discover the Hidden Treasures in our Medical Libraries". There is a large scope for libraries to use IT and the Internet, to make a change in the way information is accessed and retrieved. This initiative focused on one of several ways to help medical libraries use IT and available resources effectively for offering better services to users.

Vasumathi Sriganesh presented a plan involving four steps for each institution's library:
a) Customize PubMed to include its journal holdings
b) Display its print / online collections and other library collections using PubMed's filters
c) Evolve policies for resource sharing
d) Create a learning environment for users to do high quality literature searching

A collaborative effort to share journal resources and training users to search these resources well, will help justify the large sums of money being spent on journal subscriptions and ensure that end users make the best use of the journals in their own and in neighbouring libraries. In the long run, it should also help in collective savings of their budgets.

We invited "strategists" to deliberate on this issue. The strategists were Dr. R.S.Inamdar - Dean, Grant Medical College, Dr. V.R.Joshi - Director Research, Hinduja Hospital, Dr. S. Angadi - DY Patil Medical College, Dr. SV Chiplunkar and Dr. Sanjay Gupta - ACTREC, Dr Pundalik Sonawane - Somaiya Medical College, and librarians from various medical libraries.

They deliberated on various issues that would need tackling and agreed to discuss this within their respective institutions, and form a working group to take things ahead.

Some of the activities that were identified as important for this initiative are:

1. Personalizing PubMed for optimum use of library journal resources
2. Updating library holdings
3. Inter-library loan system for resource sharing
4. Access to NML-ERMED consortium
5. Training programs
6. Promoting the services proactively
7. Time frames
8. Costs / Funds required

At the end of the session, we were very happy to have had excellent participation and great feedback. We have subsequently come up with a Working Document -

Mumbai Medical Libraries Collaboration for Resource Sharing (MML-CRS)
A QMedKF Initiative – The First Step

We are following up with the strategists / institutions to take the project ahead. If your institution is in Mumbai and would like to be involved, do write to us at info@qmedkf.org.in

Participation in the Winter Symposium of CMC Vellore - "Evidence for Better Health"

The Winter Symposium is an Annual Event in CMC, Vellore. This time the theme was EBM, and during the four days of the Symposium there were great keynote addresses and plenary sessions. An interesting addendum to the sessions was one "especially for students" and this was a 2-hour session everyday for students to get a real idea of what EBM was all about.

I was privileged to be part of a group of faculty from various parts of India and the world! The "Imperfect TEN" as we were called (TEN stood for The Evidence Network), brainstormed on how we could make the sessions really appealing to students. One of the faculty pretended to be a drug representative and made a presentation, pushing a drug. The audience were really taken in! In another session students were taught how to Search for Evidence and make sure that information they got from the industry had all facts about a drug. On the last day there was a quiz with a prize for the winning group. Overall a wonderful session with great audience feedback.

QMed will now be working closely with the South Asian Cochrane Network in CMC Vellore to explore all possibilities of sharing our strengths. We are privileged to be able to work with this Centre.

Training Programs: PubMed - Basics

January 16 - PubMed - Basics at Pune for Nephrologists & Urologists - sponsored by a Pharma company

December 20 - PubMed - Basics at Vellore for Nephrologists & Urologists of CMC Vellore - sponsored by a Pharma company.

We'd specially like to record a feedback by Dr. Nitin Kekre, Urologist who said that this program should be mandatory at Undergraduate levels!

Document Delivery of Journal Articles

Document Delivery of Journal Articles

In the month of January 2010, we delivered 145 articles to individual members, libraries and corporate clients. The total number of documents delivered since April 2009 is 1595.

Request for Donations: Experience the "Joy of Giving" when you feel like it!.

We believe we have made a big beginning to making a significant difference to healthcare professionals and institutions with our work and offerings. We need support from every individual reading this newsletter. Every Rupee you donate or help us get will make a difference. Do contribute at least a day's salary/earnings to our Foundation any time you can. And do not forget to spread this message. We have big plans and we would like you to be a part of our efforts.

We accept donations by cheques in favour of Quality Medical Knowledge Foundation. Please send the cheques to our address, or write to 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

It's not plagiarism - I'm recycling words, as any good environmentally conscious writer would do.

Uniek Swain

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

We have added 80 new sites in the last month and the total number of sites is about 2770.

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.