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!
Aug 30, 2024: Program Update: “You have more faith in my abilities than I do”
The workshops at the KJ Somaiya Medical College and at the TNMC were both conducted with the grant money from Pfizer that we could not utilize earlier. Both events had great participation from students and faculty of the respective institutions.
The Whatsapp group of the TNMC was full of messages after the workshop thanking the organizer Dr Renuka Munshi as well as Vasumathi Sriganesh for the workshop. One Dr Shubham asked for a workshop on Systematic Reviews & Meta analyses sometime in the future. Vasumathi responded saying that her expertise stops with the sound literature searching that is required and she is not trained in the rest of the process
She was very touched when – Dr Surbhi commented – “I don’t think the day is far when you will be penning down a fantastic Systematic Review – that will speak volumes on your expertise!”
For which she responded “You have more faith in my abilities than I do”.
Bang came another response from Dr Armaity – “We all do, Madam”
TNMC docs – you have won Vasumathi’s heart!
Jun 20, 2024: The Health Sector Needs Story: an Urgent Upgrade in Learning about Systematic Reviews
In my last story, (https://www.qmed.ngo/donor-connect/ – May 30) , I had written about an important progress in India. I had mentioned that the ICMR has started providing funding for:
- Authors of systematic reviews
- And for the conducting of courses for authors, to write good reviews.
I had also stressed upon the need for very systematic search strategies, for such work and that the majority in India are not trained in this activity. We at QMed not only offer such help and training; but we are also constantly upgrading our knowledge so that we can offer the best of help.
Soon after I wrote this, I happened to attend a webinar where a couple of librarians from the University of Michigan shared their experiences of a study they conducted. The webinar was titled:
Behind the Scenes of “A Critical Analysis of Peer Reviewer Comments on Systematic Review Search Strategies”
The webinar very interestingly was about – “An analysis of the quality of search peer review at the manuscript stage”
Most people know something about Peer reviewing of a journal article. When it comes to systematic reviews, the peer reviewing is not only about the study reporting.
A very important need is the peer reviewing of the search strategies carried out and how they have been reported.*
As we mentioned in our last story, for a systematic review, the search strategies are “The Foundation” of a systematic review. Additionally well done reviews are updated at reasonably regular intervals with inclusion and re-analyses of new study results. That is how evidence stays current!
The study done by the librarians showed how often search strategies were not done in detail, often reported very poorly, peer reviewers missed errors and in the end, “less than desirable quality reviews” actually made it to publication!
This is not healthy if we want health care to be evidence based. That is a serious problem!
Now we might think – “If this is the condition in the developed nations, it is not surprising that it is similar or poorer in India”.
My answer to this is – if the IT industry from India could become world class, why not our medical publications?
Instead of consoling ourselves, we need to wake up! We need to think seriously about upgrading ourselves and our publications. We need to
- Carry out and publish great primary research
- And from these – synthesize and generate world class secondary research, producing the best available evidence at any point of time!
We have the “population of patients” – to conduct lots of research. We have the brains in the medical field. Why should we let the lacuna of methodology affect our publications?
Our call to action:
- Do join us and learn – at www.qmedcourses.in
- Better still – please get your institution to subscribe and provide access to all faculty and students.
The slides presented at this talk are available athttps://guides.lib.umich.edu/ld.php?content_id=76872906
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May 30, 2024: Organization Story: Miles to go! Deep Diving! Spreading our wings! All for India’s research outputs
Systematic Reviews are publications arising from “Secondary Research”. Which means a team of authors identifies all research papers on a topic and then together analyze and synthesize the findings in each, in order to generate evidence of what is useful.
In India, recently there has been an upward movement in this area. Healthcare faculty are encouraged to author systematic reviews. And recently the ICMR is not only funding such secondary studies, but is also calling out to medical colleges to offer training in this area.
Just like the foundation of a building needs to be very strong, for the building to be sturdy and last long, the foundation of a good systematic review includes:
- Identifying several good sources (databases) to search
- Creating the best “Search Strategy” in each of these, to ensure that no study is missed
- Documenting the search strategies for future replicability
This is an area where there is a major lacuna in our country
QMed is working hard at training people to bridge this gap.
More importantly, recently I paid $245 to enroll for a course* that taught lots more about several resources to search, and about developments in several databases. As I went through the approximately six hours long course (spread over two days) I have learnt about many more resources to explore, the nuances of search strategies and more.
I will be sharing my learnings with my colleagues, so that QMed can teach and support this activity better and better in India.
My learnings – will include several more hours of research I put into – to go through the recommended databases, their tutorials and more. I will be travelling miles, diving deep and spreading my wings!
I have no doubt I will enjoy this learning journey. But the biggest joy will happen when:
- The Govt (ICMR, NMC and related bodies) accept this need for training and ensure that it gets across
- The faculty of the health sciences institutions make the efforts to learn
- And we find methods to create experts in every institution!
- Every educated individual in the country understands the importance of such work.
At QMed, we know – “We have miles to go before we sleep”!
*Searching for Systematic Reviews: Selecting and Searching Databases
May 24, 2024: Stakeholder Story: A student from Bangladesh proves his worth
On the 2nd of May we had Sayeed – an MBBS student from Dhaka, registered on www.qmedcourses.in
That is not unusual as we have had international students join off and on. Within a week he completed the first two courses and scored an 80% and a 100% respectively. While we applauded him for his scores, we were more impressed about two things:
1. That he finished the two courses very quickly (unlike a majority of participants)
2. He gave constructive feedback!!
Apart from being specific in his feedback, he pointed out an error, in one of our assessment questions. When we checked it out, we found out that not only was there an error in giving a participant – options for choices, but also there was an ambiguity in the question.
We got both of these corrected immediately.
To reward Sayeed, we offered him access to the additional courses that we normally offer only to those who donate certain amounts, (or to institutions who pay a fee). We have offered him access to all these courses for a period of three months.
In a little over two weeks he completed the Mendeley course, scoring 86% in the same. This, despite the fact that he uses a Mac, and our course is based on the Windows version. What is important is he learnt from our course and could apply the knowledge in his context.
We are proud of Sayeed and hope he not only completes all courses, but also revisits them for thorough learning. Once again – we notice that undergrad students often learn very thoroughly and this strengthens our belief that our courses should be made mandatory for them to finish at their pace, during their undergrad student days!