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 30, 2025: A Workshop and some Nostalgia!
Date: Monday June 30, 2025
Category: Health Sector story
Keywords: Literature searching, Peer review
End of June, I was invited to deliver a lecture on “Selection of studies” for doing a systematic review. This was at a three day workshop on systematic reviews at ACTREC – which is a centre of the well known Tata Memorial Hospital in my city. A friend of mine – Satish is the librarian there and he was delivering the lecture on the topic I normally take – which is – Literature searching. I enjoyed this change. More so because about ten years ago I had actually done the screening of studies for a major review.
At that time I was coached by another expert and remembered many steps. I planned my talk. Oh yes – this time I took the help of AI, and it made my job faster. But – I did tweak it a lot and proudly claim it IS “My talk”. I believe in doing it by myself, with help from AI.
After my talk there was a practical session where Satish, another librarian friend Medha, my colleague Dipti and I – all helped coordinate a literature searching demo cum practical.
The fun part of the day, was a fond memory – Medha, Satish and I had all started our careers in librarianship – not in a medical library, but in the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism. We recalled our respective days out there fondly, and sent a picture of the three of us, to another long time (now retired) librarian of the IIG – telling her – “We wish you were with us now for this picture!”
Some events are livened up thus!
– Vasumathi Sriganesh –
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!