It was in the year 2012, during my post-graduation at the University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi that I was introduced to QMed. I attended a workshop that QMed conducted in UCMS. I had also heard about them from some of my colleagues.
Earlier my professors had provided a brief introduction to literature search. However, I was extremely glad to have attended the QMed workshop following that. During the first workshop, I was introduced to the concepts of search words, boolean operators, Mendeley etc and this time it just made complete sense. This was especially because of the hands-on training the workshop provided and specifically the time that was spent in making the participants understand the concepts. The concepts that we learn early in life help us always and in my case QMed laid a good foundation.
I have been in touch with the team since then and have always reached out to them when needed. The workshop helped me through my MD thesis completion.
Post-MD, I have been working on research projects and have been able to apply the concepts that I had learned previously. Currently, I work for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and have been involved in systematic reviews. Literature searching for systematic reviews is a far more thorough and systematic task, compared to that done for a thesis or a regular article. The QMed team has been extremely helpful in guiding me in developing and finalizing my PubMed search string for a systematic review.
Learning and adopting the search strategy is a valuable addition for any researcher, earlier the better. On one hand, with a proper search you do not miss out on important literature that you need to read for your research work, at the same time, it helps save a lot of time by filtering out all the irrelevant literature.
Learning the art of searching literature is an ongoing and iterative process. One doesn’t actually learn till one applies it in context and while doing that it just helps to have someone guide you through glitches that one faces. And that is where QMed provides excellent support. The team is as dedicated in helping you as you are towards your project, and answers your queries when needed.
For me, the best thing was that QMed team just helped simplify things for me and I just wish I had met the team earlier.
I would say that undergraduation is the best time to start learning how to search
Jessy Joseph
Program Specialist, IAVI
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Note from QMed:
- This is a personal post from Dr Jessy Joseph and does not constitute any official view of the IAVI.
- We at QMed found that while coaching Dr Jessy for searching the literature to do a systematic review, she remembered the essence of all that she learned at the first workshop and was able to apply the learning very efficiently to create a search strategy. We wish her the very best!
- In the 2012 workshop faculty, PG and UG students participated together. Since then the faculty have been conducting the same workshops at UCMS, every year
I am indebted to QMed for mentoring the team at UCMS. By giving away all that they have, teachers who are true to their calling endeavor to free their learners to enable them to embark on their own paths. By enabling the UCMS team to stand on their own, QMed did just that. Today I am proud that we continue in the legacy that QMed generously and graciously bequeathed us.