QMedCONNECT Newsletter: March 2016

Dear friends

Greetings from QMed! I'd like to start this newsletter by sharing how one of our young doctor friends - Dr Thomas delighted us. He requested for assistance for a fairly complex search and we gave him all the help that was needed. And once he received his grant, he gave us a generous donation and thanked us once again. Instances like these give us a lot of hope that our sustenance will happen through the recipients of our activities. Thank you Dr Thomas!

This month, we did a PubMed workshop for UG students of Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital. This was the first time that an institution organized one such event - not as part of a conference. We are grateful to Dr Smrati and the UG Team for all their efforts and Dr Avinash Supe for his support and blessing. The best part was that when I met Dr Supe later and thanked him, his response was "you should do this more often"!

We are also happy to share that another institution has replanned its UG conference dates later this year, based on our availability for a preconference workshop! It is wonderful to know that our workshop is valued so well at a UG level. Things ARE changing!

Vasumathi Sriganesh

From Our Blog

Read this wonderful post on our blog by Devanshi Shah, one of the students who attended the PubMed workshop for UG students at Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital.

Did You Know

MeSH on Demand!

The MeSH on demand Tool is an easy way to identify relevant MeSH Terms - either for single terms, or for entire paragraphs. You just enter your terms or a paragraph in a box and click "Find MeSH Terms". Why or when should you use this? If you are submitting an article for publication, you could paste text here and figure out which terms show up for each paragraph, and then choose the ones coming up most, as keywords. If you are looking for MeSH Terms to do a search, and do not find them in the MeSH Database, you may find the nearest ones here. The tool will definitely have more potential for uses in several contexts.
Try it out at https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MeSHonDemand.html

Interesting Reading

Kirtley, S.
Impactful librarians: identifying opportunities to increase your impact
Journal of EAHIL 2015; Vol. 11 (4): 23-28

Shona Kirtley suggests how librarians can be highly responsive to research needs of their library users. She specially stresses on creating more awareness of and training people to use the EQUATOR guidelines for reporting various forms of research. Very simply put, if people push up their knowledge about these guidelines, their writing skills and their article appraisal skills become very strong. The article has emerged from the comments in the Lancet Series on Research, where there is a discussion on increasing value and reducing waste in research. We do need to have librarians trained in research methodology and implementing ideas from this article.

From QMed’s Calendar

Talks on Literature Search, Referencing, Citing

Talks on Literature Search, Referencing, Citing at:

YMT Kharghar - Homeopathy College - Research Methodology Workshop - Mar 9
Hinduja Nursing College - Workshop on Evidence Based Nursing - Mar 14
Podar Ayurveda College - Research Methodology Workshop - Mar 15
Grant Medical College - Research Methodology Workshop - Mar 17

Special Lecture

1. 'Spectrum of Studies - Frame them well'- at a CME on Medical Writing, organised by the Dept of Anaesthesia, Seth GSMC & KEM Hospital with the Anaesthesia Academic Society.

Interactive Workshops

Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital, Mumbai - Workshop on PubMed for 36 UG Students
Amrita Centre for Advanced Research in Ayurveda (ĀCĀRA) Kollam, - One session each on Literature Searching and Reference Management for 37 PG students

Participant Feedback

• The session was very informative and practically oriented. Such interative ways of teaching important topics must be included in the curriculum. This would certianly help me in searching, writing and browsing through the search papers. Thank you - Armaandeep Singh Aulakh, UG student, Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital.

• It was a good start for the Ugs. It will give us an incentive to start getting into research. Thank you!- Shagun Nasta, UG student, Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital.

• Very good class. The class was really slow and it was very useful for any faculty of Ayurveda for understanding the newer challenges and for publication. The bibliography part was excellent because I had a hard time when I was writing an articles and when I had done my thesis and my synopsis. Thank you for the session. - Dr KrishnaKumar, Amrita Centre for Advanced Research in Ayurveda

From our Picture Gallery

UG students at KEM

Phd Scholars at Amrita Ayurveda

Events attended

CEDSS - SPJIMR - Workshop on fundraising. Ms Usha Menon - a highly experienced fund raiser and consultant shared some excellent ideas for NGOs to raise funds.