QMedCONNECT Newsletter: December 2015

Dear friends

December 2015- and it is eight years since QMed Knowledge Foundation was born. It is important for non-profits to talk about their impact – and about how many people they have reached out to. But – I think that in December, what I felt warm about is that when I ask for funds for more activities, almost everyone gives, simply because they trust that QMed is doing something important! We raised a little over $3500 from donors in India and world over – family and friends. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who donated.

In the New Year, we would like to strengthen our activities and do more than ever. We may have reached out to thousands of health science students and professionals, but the denominator is much larger. We need to reach out to lots more. On our side we commit to do more. We need the commitment from our beneficiaries to accept our help.

I throw out a challenge. Who is going to help us reach out to the Maharashtra Medical Council, the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Medical / Dental / Nursing Councils of India, to work with us and ensure that what we have to offer, reaches out to all? If you can help, do connect with us.

Vasumathi Sriganesh

Did You Know

The WHO has an Index Medicus for the South East Asian Region. Called IMSEAR for short, it is a database of articles from specific journals published within this region. Available at http://imsear.li.mahidol.ac.th/, this is a database that should not be excluded, especially for research from developing countries.

Interesting Reading

Jindal AK, Singh G, Pandya K. Qualitative research in medicine - An art to be nurtured. Med J Armed Forces India. 2015 Oct;71(4):369-72.

The authors emphasize the need to protect what they term as the “endangered art of qualitative research” from becoming extinct in our medical colleges. They explain how doctors work on history taking and conversation with patients to find out details about them, and this art is an integral part of qualitative research and comes naturally to them. It is important to understand that health professionals should not focus only on quantitative research and numbers, and that there is a trend towards this now. Quantitative and qualitative research – both – have to go hand in hand for long term health care practices. The authors have given an interesting list of reasons for qualitative research getting sidelined and mention how some much needed areas of research can only be done by qualitative methods.

What we did - December 2015

I) Talks on literature searching / referencing /citing at

Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital, Mumbai (Dept of Occupational Therapy ) - 1st Dec.
Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital, Mumbai (Dept of Radiology)- 22nd Dec.

II) Workshops@ Institutions

• Half-day interactive workshop on Literature Search and Reference Management for a group of 15 public health research professionals at Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation.

III) Workshops@QMed

Reference Management with Mendeley for one consultant of Lilavati Hospital, Mumbai

Participant Feedback

• It is a very useful session required for all researchers, as dealing with references often becomes tedious. I suggest to have sessions where there is access to internet and every participant is with his/her laptop so it becomes a very practical session, as all this is so new, it gets overwhelming. It is a session worth investing, in all research based departments- a workshop participant at Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation.

• What I learnt today has been an eye-opener because it makes the entire work accurate and precise. Moreover, the best part, it saves a lot of time. But to learn the nitty-gritty of using all that I have learnt today, I would require more practice.- Sushmita Choudhury, Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation.