QMedCONNECT: September 2008

QMedCONNECT Newsletter: September 2008

Dear friends,

healthcare professionals, librarians and friends,

This issue may appear to reach you after a very short gap, but we are "on time" with this one, and were late with the last! We will strive to reach you on the last day of every month, with a report of developments and activities.
In September, Girish Kunkur, Director, Programs, visited some medical colleges in Karnataka to discuss with them the possibilities of having training programs, and also the possibility of their helping us in our venture to promote resource sharing and inter-library lending amongst institutions. Girish was very happy with the responses from the Deans/Principals and librarians. We may have a couple of training programs in these institutions, in November 2008.

One medical association is discussing options with us for providing membership facilities for a large group of their members - we hope this works well and becomes a model for other associations to follow

We have also had an enquiry from a Faculty of a medical college in the US, requesting us to help the college get potential contributors for updating a well-known text book, which will be available online to all, through a Creative Commons License. We are working on this request.

We worked out some more possibilities for Fund raising and would actually be happy if we reached a day when "doctors sponsored doctors" - borrowing the idea of micro-financing. We believe that if every practising/working doctor contributes as little as Rs. 250 per year, we can do several activities like conducting a large number of training programs, sending free articles to PG students who can't afford them, refining and developing our ambitious "Directory of Indian Medical Sites" and so many more - the list is long enough to keep us on our toes.

We welcome help from anyone who is in a position to offer aid. If you can help, visit the section on Donations and act now. You will be contributing to an effort of “better medical care through better empowerment of healthcare professionals”.

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

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

Vasumathi Sriganesh

What we did- November 2008

Training programs in September - PubMed Basics

On 28 September (Sunday), we conducted a "PubMed-Basics" training program at Parakh Hospital in Ghatkopar East. We had 10 participants; 6 doctors, 2 PG students, 1 librarian and 1 from the Pharma industry.
We would like to thank Dr. Jagdip Shah, Consulting Gynaecologist and Obstetrician, who, on behalf of the hospital, offered us the venue free of cost for this training.

"PubMed - Basics" Forthcoming Programs

We invite registrations for our future "PubMed - Basics" training programs, which are scheduled to be held on Sundays on the following dates from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

9 November, 2008
7 December, 2008
22 February, 2009

The venues will be announced soon. We'd be very happy if people can offer a free/low cost space to conduct our training programs

Invitations for talks

Vasumathi Sriganesh will be giving talks on medical literature searching/related topics, at the following events:

a) October 25, 2008 - at the Tata Memorial Hospital for the participants of a Research Methodology workshop

b) November 7, 2008 - at the Annual Conference of the Karnataka Ophthalmic Society, in Shimoga

c) November 20-22, 2008 - at the 11th workshop on "Medical Informatics and Biomedical Communication" at the Jamnalal Bajaj Tropical Disease Research Centre, of the MGIMS at Sewagram, Wardh. (The exact date will be known soon).

Some updates on recent projects/ventures

The website for the National Institute of Immunohematology should be ready in October.

The work for the online bibliography of about 1000 papers is also progressing at a steady pace.

A small update to our last month's announcement - we would like to share that we'd be working with XRays Biocom - A Division of Sorento Healthcare Communications, as their "Knowledge Partner", to help them with their new initiative in the area of medical communication. XRays works with Pharmaceutical companies and hospitals to promote evidence based medical communications to doctors. With this partnership, XRays Biocom wishes to take our offering to the doctors through the Pharmaceutical industry.

New project/initiatives

New Website Project

We have a request from the ISSRF - Indian Society for the Study of Reproduction and Fertility- to develop their website. The Society wants a website at the earliest. We suggested that we'd do one with a very simple design and focus on working at the content for the first year. In about a year's time, the Society could consider enhancing the site to include interactive areas. The website will be up very soon.

Membership for Doctors

Your Search for Medical Information Ends Here!

As a member, you are entitled to the following services:

• Medical Articles

• Medical Literature searches

• Your own webpage - to include your professional profile

• A CD on how to use PubMed easily with search examples for 20 diseases

• Monthly alerts on your specialty

For more details and a at www.qmedkf.org.in

New Members:

We welcome four new Consultant members - a Physician from Ghatkopar, a Pediatrican from Andheri, a Nurse Academician and a Radiologist from Charni Road. If you wish to join as a member click here

Donations to QMed Knowledge Foundation

If you appreciate our unique mission, and would like to support us, we will ensure that the donation you make is not only utilized with utmost care but also with a high degree of transparency and accountability. No contribution is too little. 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 also get an IT Exemption for donations under Section 80G of the Indian Income Tax Act

Request for medical students to participate in a survey

Akshay Sharma, a final year MBBS student from KMC, Mangalore, who was featured in our May issue, is doing a survey on Internet use amongst medical students.

We request students who receive this newsletter to help him in his study by filling up this form. We'd also like to request doctors and academicians to forward this to their students. The student plans to publish a paper based on this study.

Please click here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pC4JagNLihHHvBYAfhhiFGQ&hl=en

Article of the Month:

Request for medical students to participate in a survey

Akshay Sharma, a final year MBBS student from KMC, Mangalore, who was featured in our May issue, is doing a survey on Internet use amongst medical students.

We request students who receive this newsletter to help him in his study by filling up this form. We'd also like to request doctors and academicians to forward this to their students. The student plans to publish a paper based on this study.

Please click here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pC4JagNLihHHvBYAfhhiFGQ&hl=en

Quote of the Month

I work so hard to stay in shape. Whenever I read anything, it says, "Consult your doctor before doing any exercise." It always says that. Does anybody do that? I kind of think my doctor has people coming in with serious problems. I don't think I should be calling him and saying, "Hi, this is Rita, I'm thinking of bending at the waist."

- Rita Rudner

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

We have added 63 new sites in the last month and the total number of sites has crossed 2210. If you are interested in volunteering to add new sites, 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.