QMedCONNECT: January 2009

QMedCONNECT Newsletter: January 2009

Dear friends,

Welcome to the first issue of 2009. We are happy that we have managed to share some good news with you every month! January 2009 saw us having our first anniversary celebration which was memorable for us.

A great event for us in January was a training program on PubMed Basics at the Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai - where we had 80 participants. Do read more about an unusual feedback we received there!

Our project for the IAP Mumbai is almost through; we should have their e-library ready for them in about 10 days time. We are discussing a similar project with another specialty society.

The Indian Journal of Ophthalmology has taken a membership service from us to provide journal articles to members of the All India Ophthalmic Society.

Yes, we have had several achievements; but we have miles to go too!

I'd like to make a special request to you readers - please do share information about a Conference for Undergraduate Medical Students and Scientists to be held in June this year. Organized by INFORMER the conference - Medicon 2009 is the event where young scientists and future doctors will meet to present their researches and share ideas in the fields of clinical and fundamental medicine, biomedicine and public health. This being a UG students' initiative, QMed is taking a special interest in spreading awareness of the event.

I cannot resist sharing that when I sent out an appeal for donations, in our last newsletter, we had a response on the same day for a personal donation from the former Dean of a medical college. Also, on our first anniversary event, we got a donation from a librarian in Mumbai. We also have had a Director Healthcare communications agency promising a personal donation soon.

We appreciate every donation - large or small. We again request - if you would like to see us succeed in our missionand reach self sufficiency soon, we would appreciate donations for our sustenance now. While we would ideally like donations to sponsor the information needs of economically deserving as well as achievers, in order to work on making these happen, we have to do a lot of in-house activity first. We are banking on each newsletter recipient to help us with our mission!

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

First Anniversary Celebration

QMed Knowledge Foundation held its first anniversary celebrations on the 9th of January 2009, at the Hall of Quest, Nehru Centre. We had about 30 invitees who attended the event despite the fuel shortage problem due to the petroleum companies strike.

Our Trustee Dr. Anand Shandilya welcomed the gathering and Vasumathi Sriganesh gave a report on the year's activities. Following this, we had a very interesting panel discussion on "A Click of the Mouse - Myth or Reality: Leveraging the best of the Internet and Libraries".

For a detailed report, Click Here

Membership

We had one new member joining us in January - a Gynecologist. A feedback which we received from a forthcoming member is "I am forwarding this (membership details) to many of my friends for the membership. Is this open to people outside India?"

What we did- January 2009

Training programs: PubMed - Basics and Talks on Literature Searching

1. Hetero Healthcare Ltd - for their employees on 21st January. Seven participants attended the program. The session was interactive and participants gave a good feedback

2. Sorento Healthcare - for their employees on 27th January. We had 10 participants. Good discussions and questions followed with good feedback

3. Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai. The Department of Anesthesiology of the Hinduja Hospital organized this program in the hospital's conference hall and opened the program to all health professionals who were interested. The response was overwhelming; there were a total of 80 participants! The participant profiles included junior doctors, one medical librarian, junior and senior consultants and even the Director of Professional Services of the hospital. One excellent feedback we'd like to share was a form where the participant (a PG student) had made three tick-marks against the "best ranking" option for about five questions. In the remarks area the participant had written "I have made multiple tick-marks because the session was really excellent. You made us realize that we were fools earlier. Henceforth I am sure I will be very good in searching for references".
We are really happy that someone went out of his/her way to express how deeply he/she felt about our program!

PubMed - Advanced

Lotus College of Optometry. We conducted a PubMed - Advanced program for the M.Optom students of this institute on the 24th of January. We are happy to share that this is the third year in succession that we have conducted it. We are deeply appreciative of the fact that the Institute places so much importance for this program for a paramedical course; and we hope it inspires a lot more institutions to have the programs for PG students.

Forthcoming Programs

We have had inquiries / discussions for training programs at Grant Medical College, Bhatia Hospital, Nanavati Hospital and Sion Hospital. The participants and organizers at the Hinduja Hospital event also expressed a need to conduct a "PubMed - Advanced" program at the earliest.

Talks Invited

Vasumathi Sriganesh will be delivering a talk on the Art of Literature Searching at the All India Ophthalmological Society's Annual Conference in Jaipur on 5th February, 2009

Talks Delivered

Vasumathi Sriganesh delivered a talk on "Subject gateways", to the participants of the 8th Refresher Course for College Librarians conducted by the University of Mumbai

Parvati Iyer delivered a talk on "Web 2.0 Applications in Libraries", to the participants of the 8th Refresher Course for College Librarians conducted by the University of Mumbai

Donations to QMed Knowledge Foundation

In our last newsletter we had made an appeal for donations and we were thrilled to receive a response on the same day, from the former Dean of a medical college! His commitment in the email for a personal donation of Rs. 1500/- came with the following words "I liked your honest ways most of all. May your Foundation continue to be a Service Centre rather than a Profit Centre. Many poor students do require your services particularly those who are studying in colleges that have meagre facilities."

We'd like to make an appeal once again. While we are moving toward achieving our balance of "reasonable cost offerings" for a large number of people and breaking even with the same, we still run into shortfalls almost every month. If we first receive donations for overcoming this, then it helps us work hard to achieve our targets. The long term action is to sponsor scholarships / freeships to those who cannot afford even our small charges and to motivate and encourage achievers. We wish to do this with any surplus income we have as well as through donations for the same.

Can we persuade each of you who reads this newsletter to get out your cheque book and write a cheque for Rs. 500/- or above. Once you do that, if you can persuade even one more person to make a difference to us, we think we'd make a great beginning in increasing our reach.

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.

New project/initiatives - ELibrary for IAP Mumbai Chapter

The e-library project (that we wrote about in our last issue) is almost done and we should be launching the site for the IAP Mumbai members very soon.

Special Announcement!!

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

Article of the Month:

Betkerur J.

Guidelines for writing a research project synopsis or protocol.

Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol 2008;74:687-90

This article gives a brief guide on writing a research project synopsis or protocol, and is a part of a book "Handbook on Health Professional Education". It will be useful for those who wish to get an overview on the topic.

Quote of the Month

"The teacher must not confuse Information with Education, otherwise the student may become a well-taught but wholly unlearning individual."

S.E. Whitnall, 1933
Advice on learning anatomy

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

We have added 32 new sites in the last month and the total number of sites is about 2251.

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.