A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

-LAO-TZU, Tao Te Ching


Why QMed

Ms Vasumathi Sriganesh in her career as a medical librarian and consultant since 1992, realized that medical students and doctors were not trained in searching medical literature and using medical information resources. Without these skills, students and professionals  waste precious hours. And often do not find the relevant / best literature for their work. The research they do in their lives may not be based on the best of the available literature.

‘Quality Medical Knowledge Foundation’ (QMed) was set up in 2007, to address this lacuna in the field of medical literature searching. We also felt the need for engaging in advocacy with the concerned bodies to include it in the medical curriculum.

Current year – 2023-24
  • Lectures/Webinars – 21; Participants – 2477
  • Workshops – 16; Participants – 760

Our aim is to reach our online courses to a maximum number of institutions in the country
The first two courses are free and the rest are available to institutions at a nominal fee, and to individuals who give us a donation towards this mission

Free Courses Other Courses
Institutions Registered 18 (3654) 18 (3654)
Individuals Registered 5000 285
Genesis: year by year

Baby Steps of our Foundation – 2008-09

We conducted training programs and lectures on literature searching across the country. The assessment and feedback that we collected through these programs showed that there was a deep lacuna in this area of medical education and a need to introduce such training in the medical curriculum.

  • Workshops – 21 ; Participants – 525
  • Lectures – 10 ; Participants – Around 400
The Next Year – 2009-2010

We trained medical students and professionals all over India. In addition to Mumbai, we covered Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Delhi, Kolkata, and Thiruvananthapuram.

  • Workshops – 27 ; Participants – 700
  • Lectures – 11 ; Participants – Around 900
UnLtd India… Unlimited Ideas – 2010-11

2010-2011: This year we trained more than 1500 people. This year we reached more locations – Ahmedabad, Ambala, Bangalore, Calicut, Chandigarh, Chennai, Dehra Dun, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Nagpur, Patna & Pune.

  • Workshops – 23 ; Participants – 662
  • Lectures – 30 ; Participants – Around 1230

In the third year, our CEO was selected as an investee of UnLtd India (www.unltdindia.org). This support helped us interact and brainstorm with several experts, and helped us review our work and explore.

UnLtd India asked us a crucial set of questions:

  • What is the impact of your work?
  • What change is it making in the medical education system?
  • How will it create a social impact?
Renewed Strategy 2011-12

We worked on these questions and changed our strategy –

To become change makers, capacity builders and a resource base for those in the medical education sector.

Since April 2011, we engaged in a capacity building exercise in medical colleges, teaching hospitals and research institutions. Our long term dream is to ensure trained trainers in every institution.

  • Workshops – 17 ; Participants – 470
  • Lectures – 32 ; Participants – 1290

We did a first International poster presentation at the Annual Cochrane Colloquium in Madrid, Spain.

QMed completes five years! – 2012-2013

This year was very special for QMed, as we completed five years in December 2012. The five years had been a period of steady growth and achievements. In five years, we delivered more than 100 lectures and conducted almost that many workshops, to an audience of more than 8000 health professionals and students, we felt poised to reach out to a much larger target.

  • Workshops – 14 ; Participants – 265
  • Lectures – 39 ; Participants – 1560
A Year of Fund Raising, and an Award: 2013-2014

We got a funding of Rs.77060 for our workshops from the Society for Medical Learning Resources Transfer (SMLRT), Chennai. We got ourselves listed on GlobalGiving – a fund raising portal in the US [www.globalgiving.org/14455] and in the UK [www.globalgiving.co.uk/14455] and raised $9262 between September 2013 and March 2014. Our CEO received The International Clinical Librarians Conference – “Evidence into Practice” Award. This was instituted this year, and she was the first recipient.

  • Workshops – 14 ; Participants – 276
  • Lectures – 44 ; Participants – 1360
International Alliances: 2014-2015

This year, our significant achievement was delivering 67 lectures all over the country, our highest number so far. We also participated in the Cochrane Colloquium in Hyderabad, where we were identified as an Indian organization to raise funds for! Our CEO was also invited to participate as faculty in MECOR – a weeklong workshop organized by a group from the American Thoracic Society, in India (and other developing countries).

  • Workshops – 21 ; Participants – 95
  • Lectures – 67 ; Participants – 2875
Increased UG student involvement; Recognition by the Maharashtra Medical Council: 2015-2016

This year, we conducted workshops at six UG medical conferences all over India. Also, the Maharashtra Medical Council listed our CEO Mrs. Sriganesh as a Specialty Speaker for its Continuing Medical Education Programs. We also conducted a two day workshop at Jan Swasthya Sahyog (JSS) in Ganiyari Bilaspur. This is an initiative in rural and tribal healthcare by a group of doctors from AIIMS Delhi. Our lectures were applauded by MECOR when they said “we cannot think of doing MECOR without QMed.”

  • Workshops – 23 ; Participants – 423
  • Lectures – 49 ; Participants – 2000
More Workshops / Specialized Workshops: 2016-2017

Between 2016-2017, QMed completed a unique set of workshops. We collected funds from the public to help a 100 PG students with the “Literature Searching and Reference Management” component of their theses. We conducted workshops where we taught the use of PubMed for literature search and Mendeley for reference management. As of November 2018, we finally covered a 100 PG students and were proud to announce that this program was done. Thank you for helping us in completing such a massive project!

  • Workshops – 33 ; Participants – 408
  • Lectures – 60 ; Participants – 2790
First International Workshop and the start of ELearning Courses: 2017-2018

This was the year of our first international workshop; in collaboration with “The Union”- in Myanmar, on the 10th and 11th of November. Our CEO gave a talk “Access and Usage: Delivering the Best of Both” at the BMJ Conclave, an event attended by medical librarians all over India. We also recorded our first ELearning Course this year

  • Workshops – 15 ; Participants – 293
  • Lectures – 35 ; Participants – 1479
Launch of ELearning Modules: 2018-19

In 2018, we forged into the domain of E-Learning with the launch of our first ELearning course -“Mastering PubMed: Basics” in association with Mediknit (an initiative that educates medical professionals via ELearning courses). During the year, apart from around 30-40 individuals who subscribed to the course, we also had the AMASI (Association of Minimal Access Surgeons of India) subscribing to the course for all its 10000 members!

The second and third courses – “Mastering PubMed: Advanced” and “Reference Management with Mendeley” were recorded in March 2019

  • Workshops – 16 ; Participants – 363
  • Lectures – 37 ; Participants – 1572
First institutional membership for online course; 2019-20

QMed strengthened its board to have five Trustees.

We had a major achievement – the Manipal Academy of Higher Education purchased access for 1000 people for our online courses, across three of their institutions.

  • Workshops – 9 ; Participants – 245
  • Lectures – 22 ; Participants – 1655
We launched the online courses on our own platform – 2020-21

We launched three courses in June and added a fourth in November 2020. Two courses were open to all and the other two were available to institutions at a low fee and to individuals who gave a donation to support the courses

  • Lectures/Webinars – 28 ; Participants – 4094
  • Online Courses- Six institutions and over 400 individuals joined us this year for the courses. That made a total of over 2400 people! The feedback we got on all parameters was an average of 9/10!
We started Mini-Webinars, Consulting sessions and introduced badges – 2021-22

We started with Bi-weekly short 15-minute webinar sessions for students and professionals from any health sciences field, which were repeated every month.
We started the consulting sessions with appointments for those enrolled in our courses.
We introduced badges for enrolled course users who got great scores

  • Lectures/Webinars – 24 ; Participants – 1743
  • Online Courses- 11 institutions and over 850 individuals joined us this year for the courses. That made a total of over 4000 people!
QMed completes 15 years: 2022-23
  • Lectures/Webinars –20 ; Participants – 1002
  • Workshops – 1; Participants – 80
  • Online Courses- 14 institutions and over 1350 individuals joined us this year for the courses. That made a total of over 4500 people!

Page checked / updated on 04-Mar-2024