QMedCONNECT: December 2009

QMedCONNECT Newsletter: December 2009

Dear friends,

A Very Happy New Year to you from all of us at QMed Knowledge Foundation! December is a relatively quiet month in many institutions and we have had it a little "less hectic" compared to the other months of the year. It helped all of us take breaks / vacations and recharge our batteries too! December is also the month of our "Registration as a Trust" and we completed two years of existence on the 19th of this month! The other good thing that happened this month was that our 80-G certificate was renewed till 2012.

We will be having our Foundation Day event on the 8th of January (Friday), 2010 in the afternoon. Those who are in Mumbai on that date, please do join us; we would like to share our plans for the year with you. Deans of most medical colleges and heads of hospitals and institutions have accepted our invitation to participate in this event. Our plan is for a joint initiative by which we collectively put Mumbai's medical libraries and library users on the "map of India", for totally exploiting library & information resources available to them. We will be introducing one idea of using available free technologies and training all to use these utilities and make a difference.

We invite all interested to register for this (free) event. Registering will help us plan the event well.

Vasumathi Sriganesh

Second Anniversary Event of "QMed Knowledge Foundation".

Friday, 8 January 2010 at 2.30 PM

Venue:
Hall of Quest, Nehru Planetarium, Dr. Annie Besant Road , Worli, Mumbai.

Program

2.45 PM: Registration
3.00 PM: Welcome: Dr. Bhavin Jankharia, Consultant Radiologist & Trustee QMedKF
3.05 PM: Highlights of QMedKF’s Second Year – Vasumathi Sriganesh, CEO
3.15 PM: “Discover Hidden Treasures in our Medical Libraries. Economically”
- Formulation of a Strategy
4.15 PM: “User-Speak”: My Experiences with QMedKF
4.25 PM: Vote of Thanks

Do You Know

1. The Cochrane Library has six databases. Many tend to think that the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and the Cochrane Library are the same. In addition to Systmatic Reviews, the Library has five other databases - DARE - which has abstracts of "Other systematic reviews", CENTRAL - the database of clinical trials, COCHRANE METHODOLOGY REGISTER - the database of "Methods Studies", HTAD - for Technnology Assessments, and the NHSEED - for Economic Evaluations. Each of them is a resource for Evidence of different levels.

2. ERMED - an initiative by the National Medical Library - New Delhi. ERMED - an acronym for "Electronic Resources in Medicine" is a consortium where around 300 medical journals are made available online to members of the consortium. In addition, the National Medical Library has approximately 1400 journals; articles from these may be requested for. The initiative is about two years old. Currently around 70 institutions are members and it would be really good to see this grow and reach out to all institutions and health professionals in the country. More details at www.nmlermed.in

Our Forthcoming Projects:

1. Vasumathi Sriganesh will be conducting a two-hour session on Searching the Literature for Evidence Based Medicine at a special session for students, in the 8th Winter Symposium on Evidence Informed Healthcare at the Christian Medical College, Vellore.

2. Vasumathi Sriganesh will be conducting one PubMed - Basics Program in Pune on 16th January. This is a program sponsored by a Pharmaceutical Company for Nephrologists & Urologists.

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.

Other Events of Interests:

1. January 11-14, 2010 - 8th Winter Symposium of the Christian Medical College, Vellore and the 3rd South Asian Regional Symposium on Evidence Informed Healthcare. More details.

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

• 19th - 22nd January, 2010; Workshop 1: Fundamentals of Clinical Research

• 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

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

3. ICMR Sanctioned Seminars/Symposia/Workshops

• January 9-10, 2010. Advanced Certificate Course in Ethics in Clinical Research. Seth G.S. Medical College & KEM Hospital Mumbai - 400012

• January 23-24, 2010 - 28th Annual Conference on IPs (Gujarat Chapter) & Workshop on Scientific Writing - P.S. Medical College, Karamsad, Anand, Gujarat - 388325
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:

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 this Month:

Chan L, Arunachalam S, Kirsop B.

The chain of communication in health science: from researcher to health worker through open access.

Open Medicine 2009 3:111-119

The article focuses on the big gap between the large sums of money being spent on health research and the outcome that is expected (better health of people). One of the major reasons for this gap is inadequate access to peer reviewed evidence based research. The article discusses the progress of "Open Access" and future directions. We would add that along with access, training in searching information resources requires major attention. Otherwise it will be akin to having a gigantic library and not knowing how to identify the best resources in it!

What we did – December 2009

Training programs: PubMed - Basics and Talks on Literature Searching

December 2 - Talk on "Importance of Literature Searching" at a one-day workshop on Scientific Writing, at the JSS University, Mysore for over 400 students.

December 4 - Talk on "Importance of Literature Searching" at the JPGM workshop on Medical Writing, at the KEM Hospital, Mumbai for around 100 participants.

December 5 - PubMed Basics - for Nephrologists & Urologists in Chennai - sponsored by a Pharma company.

December 13 - Talk on Literature searching at KEM Hospital, Mumbai at a Research Methodology workshop for Postgraduate students. This was a two hour session at the end of which there was a big number of requests for a full training program on PubMed and other Evidence based resources.

Document Delivery of Journal Articles

In the month of December 2009, we delivered 120 articles to individual members, libraries and corporate clients. The total number of documents delivered since April this year is 1450.

Request for Donation: Experience the "Joy Of Giving" Anytime.

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

"I keep telling myself never to take anything for granted".

A.J. Cronin.

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

We have added 100 new sites in the last month and the total number of sites is about 2690.

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.