Years ago, when I had just started freelancing after three library jobs, one of my activities was training doctors (any health professional) in using the Internet for professional activities. PubMed had not yet become public and free, so I used to teach one of the Medline services called “PaperChase” which was affordable then. I also used to do literature searches for those who needed literature and were not confident of doing it for themselves.
At that time a doctor asked me “You are teaching people to do their searches and you are also doing it for them. Are you not creating your own competition?”
At that time, I thought to myself “maybe I am, and at some point I may need to see what else I can do if lots of people learn to manage for themselves”
This was in 1998
Now, a couple of decades later I would LOVE to create my competition as long as the competitors do a good job. And to this effect, QMed is soon offering institutions a combination of workshops and online (e-learning) courses, and to explore how to create trainers. What we really want to do is to explore and find out how to create a team of trainers in every institution. A team that will steadily keep learning more, if required stay in touch with us and keep making the training process better.
It is also QMed’s dream to see that every institution develops high calibre librarians and “Informationists” – this by making sure that they receive all training needed – to support clinicians for evidence based searches and for all types of analyses of an institutions’ publications.
I will be most happy to retire then. QMed may evolve into something else – we don’t know what. Or it may merge with another health related not for profit organization. It is too early to predict anything now. But – my team and I plan to do our best to see that we are not needed in our present format forever.
I had said during the inauguration of QMed in early 2008 – “We aim to become redundant”. And I am happy that we are going in that direction! Seeking everyone’s good wishes for this, simply because it means that a lot of good will happen in the health professions then!
