QMedCONNECT: December 2008

QMedCONNECT Newsletter: Decemeber 2008

Dear friends,

It seemed just the other day when we got our Foundation registered as a Trust with the Charity Commissioner. This was on the 19th of December 2007, and we are a year old now. We are celebrating our first anniversary on Friday, 9th January 2009. On this occasion we have an very interesting Panel Discussion - do check out details below. We would be delighted to have you with us on this occasion. If you can make it, please do send us an email atinfo@qmedkf.org.in

We are very happy with our first year's work. We believe we have had some good achievements that signify a great beginning. We have a strong and focused vision and we think we have a "wonderful first step" in place. This year starting April 2008 (as Jan-Mar was spent in a lot of planning), we conducted 16 Training programs attended by about 400 professionals - Doctors - both academicians and practitioners, Students - mostly Post Graduates, but sometimes Undergraduates too, Paramedics and Medical Librarians. We've also had people from the Pharmaceutical Industry. We did some surveys in these programs and they strongly indicate the need for lots more of such programs. In fact Deans of Institutions have supported this finding. We did two new websites - one for a Research institute and one for an Association. We've had about 20 individual members and a few institutions subscribe for our services. We have helped the library of the Foundation for Medical Research create a computerized catalog of their holdings, with a very cost effective solution.

One of the most exciting projects that we got this year and are working on currently, is for the Indian Academy of Pediatrics, Mumbai branch. Do read more about this special E-library venture.

In addition, I have had the privilege of giving talks in different parts of the country in medical conferences and also be part of a brainstorming session for some plans of the Medical Council of India.

With every effort of ours, I am getting more and more convinced that our offerings constitute a major need for healthcare professionals and that QMed is poised to make some great changes for them. One thing that IS an issue is the lack of funds. This year as of date we have an income of Rs. 9.5 lakhs, and a deficit of about Rs. 2.5 lakhs. We believe we may make it up by March. But what we really want to do is to spread our expertise across India very soon. And funding WILL make a difference. I appeal to each one of you - please read the section on Donations in this newsletter, and DO spread the word. If you help us directly or indirectly - remember - you are making a difference to the health of our nation!

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

We are celebrating our First Anniversary on Friday, 9th of January, at the Hall of Quest, Nehru Planetarium, between 2.45 and 4.45 PM. The highlight of this event will be a Panel Discussion "A Click of the Mouse - Myth or Reality: Leveraging the best of the Internet and Libraries"
The panelists for this thought provoking discussion are Dr. Ravi Rananavare (Dean TNMC),
Dr. Sudeep Shah, Dr. Ravi Ramakantan, Dr. Subhash Angadi, Dr. Tarun Israni, Dr. Mohan Koppikar, Dr. Medha Joshi, Ms. Shanti Ganeshan, Ms. Phalakshi Manjrekar, and Dr. Preeti Mehta.

We hope this discussion will give us fresh directions and lead to some good collaborations.

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?"

New projects/initiatives

ELibrary for IAP Mumbai Chapter

We are currently working on a project for the Indian Academy of Pediatrics (Mumbai Chapter). We are creating a website covering 40 diseases under 10 Pediatric specialties. Each disease has eight hyperlinks that fetch highly relevant references on a specific topic. An expert search strategy is built into each hyperlink, and since a real time search is run each time a link is clicked, any updates are automatically retrieved. For every topic under a disease there are two hyperlinks - Free articles and Abstracts. The “free link” will instantly give access to articles available free online. For the articles not available free online, QMed will provide a document delivery service to supply the same.

The references retrieved will be from a large number of Pediatrics (and related) journals and not only a small list that most Pediatricians usually have access to.

What we did- Decemeber 2008

Training programs: PubMed - Basics and Talks on Literature Searching

7th Dec, 2008 - Pikale Nursing Home:
We had to cancel the program that was scheduled for the 7th Dec as majority of registrants were put on Alert Duty following the tragic events that happened in Mumbai, from 26 November.

24th Dec, 2008 - KMC Mangalore:
Vasumathi Sriganesh conducted a program for 41 participants at the Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore on December 24, 2008. The participants were faculty of the college and a few students. The former Dean, Dr. Raghuveer was one of the participants. We were delighted to later receive an email from him saying "We all enjoyed the programme so much so that as soon as we reached home we started opening PubMed.Thanks indeed for coming all the way. We will organize a bigger programme later. I feel the basic programme should be taught to every doctor." Thank you Sir, your words are very encouraging!

Forthcoming Programs

Tuesday -20th Jan - 2009 - Hetero Healthcare - for their employees.

Saturday 31 January 2009 - P.D. Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre

As part of their commitment to Continuing Medical Education, the Department of Anaesthesia, P D Hinduja National Hospital & Medical Centre in collaboration with QMed Knowledge Foundation will be organizing a PubMed Basics Training program on Saturday 31 January 2009 from 3.30 pm to 7.30 pm.
Venue: 4th Floor, Conference Hall, OPD Building, P D Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Centre.
Veer Savarkar Marg, Mahim, Mumbai 400 016.

For more details and for Registration, please visit the websitewww.hindujahospital.com and check the Events section

You can send the Registration Form along with the cheque or Demand Draft for Rs. 300/- in favour of “Quality Medical Knowledge Foundation" payable at Mumbai to the following address:

Marketing Department
4th Floor, OD Building
P. D. Hinduja National Hospital & Medical Research Centre
Veer Savarkar Marg,
Mahim, Mumbai 400 016.
Email: marketing@hindujahospital.com /events.hindujahospital@gmail.com

Spot registrations if feasible will be allowed, however printed course material booklet will not be assured for spot registrants.

QMed would be very happy if more institutions take initiatives like this and also if people can offer a free/low cost space to conduct our training programs

Donations to QMed Knowledge Foundation

Dear healthcare professionals. Would you like to see a day when each of you can either get articles that you wish, or any help with IT for medicine at very affordable costs or free when possible? We at QMed DEFINITELY will be delighted to see such a day. And we are working hard to make that happen. We are leaving no stone unturned. We continuously brainstorm on this issue.

If each of you who reads this newsletter gives us a donation of Rs. 500/- you could be sponsoring a student for one training program; Rs. 1500/- will support a PG thesis for literature searching.

Now if 100 people donated Rs. 500 - you can see the ripple effects. Do some permuatations and combinations of the figures of number of people and amounts. You can help QMed make a huge difference. For example if 1000 people gave Rs. 2000, then we'd be able to support 4000 students for a training program or about 1300 students for their PG thesis.

Can we persuade each of you who reads this newsletter to take 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 do the same, 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 underSection 80G of the Indian Income Tax Act.

Pre conference workshop - Meditel 2008

December 18, 2008: Vasumathi Sriganesh conducted Preconference workshop at Meditel 2008, Chennai on Searching Medical Literature. This was well received.

Article of the Month:

Das Kausik et al.

Tips for teaching evidence-based medicine in a clinical setting: lessons from adult learning theory. Part 1 & 2. J R Soc Med. 2008; 101(10):493-500 AND 101(11):536-43. The articles (2 parts) describe how to teach EBM in a clinical setting. The authors have given some very practical tips on how to get good results form such a teaching program. The 2nd part also has a list of questions one should ask oneself regularly to be a practitioner of Evidence based practice. We also appreciate the authors' emphasis on the need to have good search skills and to know the right evidence based resources.

Humour of the Month

Medical researchers have discovered a new disease that has no symptoms. It is impossible to detect, and there is no known cure. Fortunately, no cases have been reported thus far.

George Carlin

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

We have added 8 new sites in the last month and the total number of sites is about 2232. This month we gave less attention to this "labour of love" as we had to put more attention to our core projects.

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.