Donor Connect: Our fortnightly updates to donors
Dear Donors - In case you have missed any of our mailers, you could check this page and catch up. And if you are someone who has stumbled upon this page for the first time, we invite you to join us in our journey. Give us a donation to sustain our work. Contribute your time/ expertise. Connect us with people who matter - in the National Medical Commission / ICMR or any of the Councils. Help us reach medical / nursing / dental / pharmacy and other colleges. In short - Become a part of the history we are creating! We welcome you!
Jun 17, 2025: QMed Completes Five Years of Launching QMedCourses
QMedCourses Turns 5 – Thanks to Your Support, We’ve Created Impact That Matters!
On June 14, 2020, right in the heart of the pandemic, we launched our ELearning platform –www.qmedcourses.in– built entirely through a “work-from-home” effort.
Today, we are proud to share that in just five years:
- We have had around 45 institutions – small to large and a total of around 10,000 individuals register with us.
- Our work was cited in the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India (JAPI) – PMID: 39563131
- Sri Manakula Vinayagar Medical College made it mandatory for PG theses to include a documented search strategy.
- The Lancet Citizens’ Commission engaged us to coach researchers for guidance with search strategies for scoping reviews.
- Institutions like SMIMS (Sikkim) and GIMSR (Visakhapatnam) ensured that the majority of their students and faculty completed our courses and submitted certificates.
- And six undergraduate students, after learning from QMedCourses, won a prize at a Rheumatology Conference for their systematic review poster!
This is just the beginning. We believe that the National Medical Commission (NMC) should mandate structured training in literature searching and referencing in every medical institution.
Do you agree? We invite you to help us take this to the NMC and beyond
We’d love to hear from you. Please write to us at info@qmed.ngo
Thank you for being part of our journey. You’ve helped us plant the seeds—together, let’s grow a nationwide movement.
May 31, 2025: Non-profits: What Founders Go Through
I recently came across a great post on LinkedIn by Ajit Sivaram – co-founder of U&I Trust. In this post he described what it is like to be a Founder of a not for profit organization in India. In approximately a dozen paras that he wrote, every line resonated with what I feel today.
People ask me why QMed is a not for profit. Next time I am asked this question, I am going to use Ajit’s answer:
“My work isn’t just charity. It’s necessary. It’s professional. It’s the hard, unglamorous labor of building the India we keep saying we want.” Something that no one else works on. But my terrific team and I do (for QMed’s mission).
Correct Literature searching and correct referencing, using a reference manager are two skills that every health professional MUST learn. Whether they do research or not. BUT, somehow this has not sunk in. Neither the National Medical Commission nor the Directors, Deans, Principals or any Heads have yet felt this is a MUST. Many have felt it is something “nice to know” or “useful”. But not yet critical and compulsory.
And that is what we are trying to change.
People also ask me – “Why can’t your target audience pay?”
My answer – “Till they understand the importance, or till it is made mandatory, they choose not to.
We are offering to make this change with an affordable solution – a platform – www.qmedcourses.in – where people can learn at their own pace and also interact with us. Or even invite us to their institution to conduct workshops.
The day when the NMC and related boards take this seriously enough – good things will happen:
- Students will see additional reading and research in a new light
- Research standards will improve
- Medical writing standards will improve
- We will generate good quality publications and not the large quantity that is happening today – where quality is not certain
- We will generate Indian evidence
- And QMed can prove that low cost solutions CAN make a big difference!
Here is a link to Ajit Sivaram’s excellent post. Highly recommended reading!
By Vasumathi Sriganesh
May 19, 2025: Our Founder gives a talk about Library and Information Sciences as a Career
A couple of weeks back I was invited by a friend Dr Shubhada Nagarkar to participate in an event she planned for and deliver a short talk. Dr Shubhada is a Prof of Library and Information Sciences in the Savitribai Phule University, Pune. She planned this event to attract more students to the profession and so the talk was for Undergrad students of any discipline.
The event was online and held on May 15. There were around 37 participants. There were five speakers
Dr Mehtab Alam is the Head of an LIS department of AMU. He talked about the profession and about his own career in both corporate and academic domains. He stressed that opportunities were plenty.
I was the second speaker. After sharing a bit about my career story, I stressed that as a Social entrepreneur I was giving back a lot to society, by way of creating better doctors (and health professionals) with vital search skills. And shared examples of how I had helped doctors with information that they used, to approach treatment and in fact even save a life.
The third was Mr Anant Sabane, a librarian who specialized in Technical Writing. The fourth was a young lady Ms. Shraddha Panage who is with MasterCard. The fifth and youngest person was Ms Tanmayee Joglekar, who works for Think Analytics.
It was wonderful listening to all. I must admit – especially to the youngest two (who also happened to be Dr. Shubadha’s students – she was rightfully very proud of them). They highlighted what is very important today. You may work in a library or another domain – but the skills of Information Sciences play a great role in several domains!
This is an important message for both future employers and of course for students considering Library and Information Sciences as a career.
Feedback from the students was good too – with many indicating that they would consider a career in this field. Some gave useful suggestions for more such sessions. I am happy that Dr Shubada is planning for more, and I have told her that I would be happy to help in this initiative!
Apr 30, 2025: New Year, New Energy: Goals, Growth & Giving Back!
Another new financial year begins and we have already completed a month. This year we started off on a great note. We created a set of goals for the year 2025-26. Then, using the power of mind maps and some productivity techniques that I learnt from my mentor recently, we worked further. We split the goals month wise. We also worked out methods on tracking what we accomplished. We found that we had done pretty well for April! That felt really good and we are charged to do more next month!
In April an important development was figuring out how we could use volunteers. For years, when we did try, we had not been too successful. This year, we stumbled upon www.wedogood.in – we heard their Founder speak in a webinar and then later connected with them. They are an organization that understands what an NGO needs, connects them to people from their volunteer pool and then helps the NGO to complete a specific project with the volunteer’s help. We have signed up for one and are eager to move ahead!
Earlier this year, we had a small experiment with two interns from the NMIMS – a well known institution in Mumbai. It was great knowing that their students of the BBA degree had to compulsorily intern with NGOs in their first year. We got two very enthusiastic students – Ananya and Mittal who put in 60 hours with us and then are continuing with us on their own accord for a slightly longer time. It is a learning experience for us too – and we hope we make some strides in great engagement of volunteers.