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!
Mar 04, 2025: A workshop where it matters. Where research is for rural public health
