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AI, Medical Writing and remembering Dr Sunil Pandya
Recently I came across a post in LinkedIn, where the author of the post Dr Rahul Gopal shared an image of an article in a journal of a prestigious publishing house. The introduction began with “Certainly, here is a possible introduction to your topic….” And Dr Gopal writes about how the author has obviously used AI to write. But not just that, – there had been no checking, and the peer reviewers and editor/s apparently let this slip by.
My thoughts wandered to more than two decades ago when I was invited to attend a meeting of Editorial board members of several medical journals in Mumbai. It was an informal event running through two afternoons. Important to mention – this was just before Internet access became public and the Internet itself was at a rather nascent stage.
Every member present shared the challenges that their journals were going through, in terms of getting high quality articles. A lot of brainstorming was done to see how the situation could be made better. Towards the end, the group invited Dr Sunil Pandya to share his wisdom. For those who have not heard of Dr Sunil Pandya – he was a Neurosurgeon, ethicist, prolific writer and medical historian. He was the head of the Department of Neurosurgery at the Seth GS Medical College & KEM Hospital, Mumbai, and founding editor of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics.
His answer was crisp – he was not a man who minced words. He said, “I will give you the answer, but it is not practical” – and went on to list:
- About 90% of Indian journals must close down.
- Their topics should be absorbed by the other 10% of Indian journals
- Every issue must accept only top articles, which means an issue might have only one or two articles
- When all these journals show that they mean business, only then we can really improve!
Of course he then added the problems – that no journal would get advertising revenue etc. The meeting ended with people having got some solutions, but certainly not all.
Recently, I shared the above with a good friend – Dr Supten Sarbadhikari. He said “Today I will say that this is applicable for many non Indian journals too!”
Food for thought!! This example shared by Dr Gopal emphasizes it further. And I wonder – if Late Dr Sunil Pandya read this – how he would cringe!
Note: the article that was mentioned at the start has apparently been later retracted
Sep 15, 2025: Your support + WeDoGood = Stronger QMed
At QMed, we are often advised to “get volunteers” for our work. But this was never easy for us. Almost every task we take up requires specific skills and professional expertise. We always felt uncomfortable asking people to give such work for free.
Then came WeDoGood—and changed things for us.
For a small fee, their team worked hard to connect us with two skilled volunteers—Pallavi and Satheesh—who helped us with something very important: documenting the workflow processes behind our E-Learning courses. They met our team online, understood our needs, and produced clear, professional workflow documents.
This may sound simple, but for us it is a game-changer. Tomorrow, if we are able to bring more people on board, these documents will save valuable training time and ensure consistency in our work.
Encouraged by this success, we are now planning more projects with WeDoGood. The best part? They are even helping us by finding corporate donors who will fund them to do specific projects for us.
We wanted you—our valued supporters—to know about this development. It not only helps us stretch your donations further but also ensures that we get high-quality professional input for our mission.
Regards
Vasumathi Sriganesh
Sep 1, 2025: Behind the Scenes at QMed + My Podcast Story
I attended an event on 1st Sep, where a doctor was addressing a mixed audience – both medical and non medical, and the topic was about HealthCare IT and the ABDM. He started by saying “In this room I can see only around six doctors and so I have to stress – that there is so much that goes behind what you see that a doctor and medical team does.”
How right he was. But that is equally true for anyone else – (maybe to varied extents). Do read our last blog post – that describes a similar situation for QMed.
Recently I was invited to speak for a podcast that was done as a part of a series. The school I studied in, is celebrating the 40th year of the formation of the Alumni Association. I spoke about my life in school and more, and my evolution in my profession. I gave an important message to the current students – telling them (from my experience) that gaps in one’s career do not matter the way we feel they do. And putting in one’s best in any efforts pays. Do listen to the podcast – https://youtu.be/dSJJK9W6Xf8?si=jWqsAP2W4aSphUcQ
Regards
Vasumathi Sriganesh.
Jul 21, 2025: Another workshop and different Nostalgia!
Date: Monday July 21, 2025
Category: Program Update
Keywords: Literature searching, Program story, QMedCourses
On the 15th of July, I was invited to give a talk at the SNDT Women’s University. The occasion was a one day workshop for faculty from different departments – (mainly Home Science). And it was on Writing and publishing.
I had to speak on the topic “Literature Review” – which is an important part of any research paper. I divided my talk into two areas – Literature Searching and the Literature Review components. I stressed – that it would be easier for them to learn the latter anywhere, but the former – is barely taught. And when I finished my talk – they agreed! They were delighted that I had put in enough emphasis on searching!
Then came the fun part. Out of four faculty for the day, one was from the host institution and three of us were invited speakers. As the three of us introduced ourselves to each other and chatted, we discovered that all of us had done our first degrees from the same college (Women’s Christian College) – in the city of Chennai! We could not stop marvelling at the coincidence.
We had all studied there at different times of course. When we later shared our picture in the college alumni group – we could not help feeling that we were all special!
Reminiscing further I feel that we had all been grounded well even in our first BSc degree and that’s what made us do well later in life too.
We went back home with a great feeling of having made our contributions for the day!
-Vasumathi Sriganesh