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!
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.
Apr 16, 2025: QMed’s impact. A young doctor wishes to help his institution’s library
I am delighted to share this month’s “DonorCONNECT” story – one that touches our hearts.
There are some days when we have unexpected calls / emails / visitors. A recent event was when a young doctor we knew, wrote to us after quite some time. He had attended our PubMed workshop a few years ago. He later enrolled in www.qmedcourses.in for advanced learning. For both events he gave us excellent feedback and had kept in touch with us off and on.
When he called, he shared with me about having joined his Alma Mater as a resident a few years ago – wanting to express gratitude to the institution. That sounded so good!
It felt even nicer when I heard that he now wishes to help their library in whatever way he can. He had got inspired by our work at QMed (and the fact that librarians were behind it). One important concern he shared was he felt that their institution’s librarian had put in lots of efforts but was unable to attract a foot fall to the library.
We fixed time to discuss this in some more detail and during the call, I shared some conceptual points like
- We have to see what best to do with short attention spans of people for any reading.
- Identify book lovers, get them together and brainstorm.
- See how the library can reach out to many users. He loved it when I said – “The library should go to the reader”. Footfalls are not just about people coming into the library – but about using library resources.
- How can the library be made into a “welcoming space”.
We worked out some ideas like:
- Start by involving a few students and faculty who love to read.
- Identify some unusual books and plan to highlight specific areas – maybe by making cards with these thoughts.
- Have book discussion clubs.
- Have journal clubs.
- Inspired by our old colleague who had done this earlier – Have events where participants are given questions. and asked to “find the answers from the best resources”. He loved this innovative idea.
- Have research discussions.
- Have short “learn how to” sessions.
He was very happy with these ideas and said he would work on them.
This is just the beginning – I hope to hear from him in a few months. Even if one activity takes off – that is a beginning!
It is indeed wonderful when a workshop participant of a decade ago comes back! We at QMed feel so good.
This quarter – Mid Apr to Mid- July we wish to raise Rs 2,00,000 for revamping our website and for various renewals we need to pay – video editing software, video hosting, website hosting and more. You could even give monthly recurring donations if that is easier for you. When you give, you join us in our mission towards developing a healthier society!
Mar 31, 2025: QMed completes utilization of its first Grant
March has been a busy month with two workshops and three lectures. We finished the last two workshops with the first ever grant money we received from Pfizer in 2023. These two were at the Tata Memorial Hospital and the Seth GSMC & KEM Hospital. A slightly disappointing part was that at both venues, while about 35 registered, we had far less that actually attended. In medical institutions sometimes other emergencies make this happen and it was sad that it happened in both these institutions.
Of course those who came, made it up with 100% enthusiastic participation and encouraged others who missed, to learn from our ELearning courses.
We also had two lectures at the YMT Ayurvedic college and one webinar for the ML Dhawale Memorial Homeopathic College. I must confess that I miss the interactions that happen in live events, when I speak over a webinar session. But for institutions, it is sometimes more effective to plan for webinars rather than live events.
We are at the end of another Financial year of not having made ends meet. But we strive on! And keep hoping that people WILL support us financially to take things ahead. Importantly the bodies like the NMC, the DCI and more will make our courses mandatory. Then with every institution subscribing, we will have the finances to put in much more than we are able to now and make a huge change in the country!
Mar 04, 2025: A workshop where it matters. Where research is for rural public health
After 12 long years, Vasumathi Sriganesh, our CEO visited SEARCH, Gadchiroli – this time to conduct a one day workshop on PubMed & Zotero. Her earlier visit in 2012, was to explore SEARCH, spend time there, and understand if QMed could help them in any way. She spent a full week and had written some blog posts on her personal blog.
This time the workshop was on the 27th of February. She reached there on the 26th and left on the 28th morning. On the 27th, around 15 people attended the workshop. The audience had a mix of young doctors, public health researchers and a Statistician, Mr Mahesh who has been with SEARCH for years. Vasumathi had met him last time too and was impressed with all his committed work!
Dr Abhay Bang himself was present to inaugurate the event. He exchanged a few words with Vasumathi and introduced her to the audience, after the brief lamp lighting ceremony. He then requested all participants to make the best use of the workshop.
The group was extremely committed. They seemed to be on the edge of their chairs all the time – waiting to absorb every input. They participated a 100% – answering questions, solving problems that were set, and more. Ms Roshni Babu was the coordinator for this workshop and did all that she could to make the trip comfortable and memorable. At the end of the workshop – she told the others the most important thing. She said “we are aiming to increase our publications – so that we share our research findings across”! If this was an organization that had brought down infant mortality by a whopping 72% – after their founders moved in there, they definitely did need to share how they worked, how they carried out public health research, and more!
At the end of the day, Vasumathi got to meet Drs Abhay and Rani Bang once again, after the daily prayer meeting. Dr Rani told that she remembered Vasumathi’s last visit very well. They had a brief chat and was told that she was welcome to visit more often.
SEARCH is really a place for a quiet “getaway” from cities and stresses. You only hear birds out there! For Vasumathi it was the perfect combination of a lovely break plus doing what I love doing!