QMedCONNECT Newsletter: May 2009

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Dear friends,

Welcome to the fifth issue of this Newsletter. We started this financial year with getting a couple of interesting projects. We are working on creating an 
E-Library on a gastrointestinal disease and have also got a project for managing the content of the website of a corporate healthcare organization.

This month we have three new individual members, one corporate member and one Institutional member.

We conducted one training program for which we had sponsorships, which helped us as well as the participants. A lecture that I delivered at a workshop has brought in requests for more programs during the year! With this good start, we hope we can achieve all that we had set out to do.

Most of the doctors with whom I have interacted mention that medical research in India has a long way to go and our medical education degrees do not give enough importance to teaching medical research methodology. Having recognized this, especially with reference to searching medical literature, our Foundation wishes to spread the word about any workshops, conferences or programs on research methodology We will include these in our newsletter as well as our website. In fact, this issue's Article of the Month is Why learn research methodology by Dr. BK Nayak, Editor, IJO. We have also listed some forthcoming events.

We are very proud to say that in the month of May, we have delivered 184 articles to our members/corporate clients - our highest so far!

And finally, nine people have accepted the invitation to be on our Advisory Committee. We are happy to introduce them to you in this newsletter.

We would be happy to receive more views/suggestions by email at info@qmedkf.org.in.

In case you have not received our earlier issues - do check them out on our website.

Vasumathi Sriganesh

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Membership

We welcome three individual members this month - a Radiologist, a Biochemistry/Lab Medicine specialist and a Laparoscopic surgeon. We have one new corporate member. The IISER, Pune, has taken Institutional membership.

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New Web-project

We have a new web project this year - maintaining and updating the website content for a healthcare corporate which specializes in the area of diagnostics. 

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QMedLINKS - E-Library project

We are creating an E-library for a gastrointestinal disease, for an associate's corporate client. The client will be providing this on CDs to about 1000 doctors. The E-library will consist of hyperlinks that will provide access to articles and abstracts on a number of aspects of the disease. Each hyperlink will run a search and fetch the most relevant abstracts as well as free articles on various aspects of the disease.

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What we did- May 2009

Training programs: PubMed - Basics and Talks on Literature Searching

Programs conducted

We conducted a PubMed Basics program at Pikale Hospital, Mahim on May 16, 2009. We had eight participants and were happy to be able to offer them a subsidy of Rs. 250/- each, thanks to a sponsorship by Sorento Healthcare Pvt Ltd. We also had a sponsorship for the venue and LCD projector facility - from another organization that has offered the same for the year.

Forthcoming Programs

PubMed Basics - We have been invited to conduct one program at a Dental College in Mangalore on June 27, 2009.

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.

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Talks Invited

Vasumathi Sriganesh has been invited as Faculty at a pre-conference workshop at Medicon 2009 - a conference for Undergraduate medical students. This event will be held in Mangalore, on June 24, 2009

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Talks Delivered 

Vasumathi Sriganesh conducted a session on Literature Search - with exercises and examples at the 5th Research Methodology Workshop jointly conducted by the IJO and the Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai, on May 30, 2009
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New Advisory Committee

We are very proud to introduce the people who have accepted our invitation to be members of our Honorary Advisory Committee. (All these members will be advising us based on our need. This will be in their personal capacity and not in any way connected to the organization they are employed with.)

1. Dr. Ajit Babu - Expert in Medical Informatics - based in Kochi and in the US 
2. Dr. Akshay Sharma - Intern, Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore 
3. Dr. Arjun Rajagopalan - Medical Director, Sundaram Medical Foundation, Chennai 
4. Dr. I.K. Indrajit - Radiologist, Command Hospital, Bangalore 
5. Dr. Nithya Gogtay - Associate Professor in Clinical Pharmacology, Seth GS Medical College, Mumbai 
6. Mrs. Phalakshi Manjrekar - Director, Nursing, PD Hinduja National Hospital, Mumbai 
7. Dr. C.V. Raghuveer - former Dean of Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore 
8. Dr. S.N. Sarbadhikari - Founding Chair of Biomedical Informatics - PSG Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Coimbatore 
9. Dr. Subhash Angadi - Dept of Microbiology, Padmashree Dr. DY Patil Medical College, Navi Mumbai.

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Document Delivery Of Journal Articles

In the month of May 2009, we delivered 184 articles to individual members, libraries and corporate clients. This has been our highest number so far; the previous high being 176 in March 2009. We are happy to note a steady increase in the number of requests we are receiving and we hope we can increasingly provide a high fill rate.

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Donations to QMed Knowledge Foundation

We accept donations only 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.

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Special Announcement!!

1. Medicon 2009 - The Second Asian and the Third National Medical Students' Research Conference will be held during June 24 to 28, 2009 at the Kasturba Medical College Mangalore. Organized by INFORMER, the target audience is UG medical students. For more details check out http://www.informer.org.in/Conferences

2. BHARAT
BASICS IN HEALTH APPRAISAL, RESEARCH AND STATISTICS
This course is designed for post graduates, clinicians and health service researchers. The course will be arranged under the auspices of the National Allergy Asthma Bronchitis Institute (NAABI), on July 4 and 5, 2009.
Interested candidates may please contact:
Dr. Raja Dhar (MRCP, MD, M.Sc.).
e-mail : docaardee@yahoo.com 
website : www.naabi.org

3. "Indian Pediatrics" announces the 1st Workshop on the "ART AND SCIENCE OF WRITING A PAPER" on September 26-27, 2009 at the Auditorium, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi. For more details - seehttp://www.indianpediatrics.net/ipworkshop%20.pdf

4. 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 much more. For more details click here

5. Supercourse Lectures: Supercourse is a repository of lectures on global health and prevention, which has been designed to improve teaching prevention. Supercourse has a network of over 64000 scientists in 174 countries, who are sharing for free a library of 3623 lectures in 30 languages. Supercourse has been produced at the WHO Collaborating Center, University of Pittsburgh, with Ronald LaPorte and others as the core developers.

Our Foundation has received a CD of the entire content, and we are willing to copy it - as requested by Ronald and give it to interested individuals/institutions. 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.

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. 

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Article of the Month:

Nayak BK. 

Why learn research methodology?.

Indian J Ophthalmol 2009;57:173-4

Dr Nayak in his editorial in the current issue of the IJO, stresses that whether one does formal research or not, it is really important for all to understand research methodology. Stating that medical research is not given due importance in either the undergraduate or postgraduate curriculum, he explains that all doctors need to know about good research methodology at least to learn to differentiate between good research evidence and poor research evidence and to be able to decide which evidence to adopt for treatment and in practice.

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Quote of the Month

"The Internet is the world's largest library. It's just that all the books are on the floor."

- John Allen Paulos (Prof of Maths, Temple University)

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

We have added 34 new sites in the last month and the total number of sites is about 2360. 

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.

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