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!
March 1, 2024: Program Update – Single Sign On for our ELearning site for InstitutionsMarch 1, 2024:
At QMed, we continuously explore how we can make things better with our ELearning courses – www.qmedcourses.in
One of the things we explored was the option of a Single Sign On, also known SSO. Several libraries have an SSO tool to allow their students and faculty to access various library resources they subscribe to. This helps in many ways
- Library users – do not need to remember several different user ids and passwords
- The resource providers – do not need to physically enroll each person. They also need not worry about ineligible users having access – when students or employees leave the organization
- The institution and the library feel good about making things easy for their users.
QMed first provided access using the SSO – to Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi. The librarian Ms Indira and the vendors of the SSO – (Knimbus) coordinated with us and helped us make this happen
The next two institutions were AIIMS Bhopal and AIIMS Bathinda – through their SSO – MyLoft. Again the vendors were very helpful.
We hope to do this in more institutions that have an SSO platform and we hope that those who do not have one, will get one soon!
February 15, 2024: Founder Story – Interaction with Government Agencies
The year – 1996. I was the librarian of HELP – Health Education Library for People. Many in or from India may remember that Internet access became available to the public from August 1995. It was Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) that was the only Internet Service Provider then. (VSNL was a Government of India undertaking). Understandably there was a large waiting list for connections.
Our library got its connection sometime in 1996, with what was then called the “Shell” account, (Unix based). A Shell account got us to see a black screen with white characters. No images, graphics, colours. This account cost us Rs 5000/- for 500 hours of usage. (If we needed a Browser based graphics account it would cost Rs 15,000/- for 500 hours!)
I got familiar with its use and soon after we had access to the Medline database too. PubMed was not yet launched then! The Medline access was available at a reasonable cost. Our library soon also became a centre through which we could offer Medline passwords to doctors or health professionals at a reasonable fee. All this happened thanks to the efforts of the Founder of HELP – Dr Malpani
Coming back to the VSNL – I started going there often for meetings that were held, to promote the usage of the Internet. I got to know Mr Syngal – then CMD of VSNL, and Mr A Kumar, then Director Operations, pretty well. When I was due to go to Chennai for a wedding, I wrote an email to both of them asking if the Chennai VSNL office could arrange to invite doctors for a presentation that I would make, on Medline. I got an immediate yes and it was done in no time. My notice was short and it was a week day, so there were just a few doctors, but they were delighted with the presentation. Two doctors immediately took the Medline access too.
Later, when our library’s Internet access expired, I made a visit to the VSNL Office and requested for a waiver or a discount as we were a public library offering health information services. That too was granted to us very soon.
On both occasions I was pleasantly surprised by very quick positive responses. Government offices have been good on so many occasions! Yes – we are aware of red tapism and more, but it is good to remember these stories too. Such stories help me stay optimistic today.
A post script – In 2020, my husband and I got a copy of Mr Syngal’s book – “Telecom Man: Leading From the Front in India’s Digital Revolution” After reading it, I wrote him an email, sharing all these incidents and also telling him how the Internet access led me to eventually start a Trust like QMed. He responded with a lovely “Thank you and best wishes”. We were supposed to meet at his book launch in March, but the pandemic and lock down followed. Sadly Mr Syngal expired a few months later and my wish to meet him did not happen. However he has left the optimistic streak in me!
February 2, 2024:Why does the stick work better than the carrot?
On 23rd January Vasumathi Sriganesh delivered a lecture on literature searching at the Ayurved Mahavidyalaya in Mumbai for their Post graduate students. An enthusiastic lot, they scored very well in the small post test that we normally give at the end of such events.
But here is something very thought provoking.
In the Feedback Section of the form, we asked a question – “Do you think Literature Searching should be taught in the curriculum”? All of them answered – “Yes”
But – for the question – “Will you register for our courses and complete them” – Only one student said Yes. Most said that they would like to but time is a problem!
(It was mentioned earlier, that they need to spend just about 8-10 hours and they have a whole year to complete them!)
When verbally asked – “You were offered a great carrot, but it looks like you need a stick to do the courses”. Why??
All of them smiled and said “Compulsion definitely helps”!
Interestingly after the lecture, Vasumathi Sriganesh was invited to meet the Principal. And to her pleasant surprise a couple of faculty members and the Principal expressed interest in subscribing to our Elearning courses. They also assured her that they would ensure that all students completed them. We are now eagerly waiting for them to complete the formalities. Once they complete the formalities, they would be the first Ayurved College to sign up!
December 21, 2023: Will You Be a Catalyst for India’s Medical Research Revolution?
Raising funds consistently posed challenges for us. Our donor pool was limited, primarily relying on reaching out to the same individuals whenever funding was required.
Danamojo is a platform through which we collect our donations within India. They recently organized a program to help several NGOs to raise funds. This four-month initiative focused on institutionalizing retail fundraising. We submitted an application for the program and were fortunate to be selected.
During that month, donations we raise wre being “matched” by Danamojo (our fundraising platform). Our target was Rs 15 lakhs! We had a campaign called – Will You Be a Catalyst for India’s Medical Research Revolution?. During the challenge, (Oct 19 – Nov 17) we raised about Rs 4.6 lakhs. And we got matching donations of approximately Rs 70,000/-.
We had planned to utilize the amount as below:
- Rs 7 Lakhs for MBBS students who will be going for the ICMR STS program, providing them with access to QMedCourses.
- Support 12 small institutions with our courses and mentoring.
- Support 15 non-funded Systematic Review authors
Having raised about Rs 5 lakhs we started with the ICMR STS project. We have embarked on this and several students have registered with us to do the ELearning courses. We look forward to seeing more registrations.
We have extended the campaign page – till 31st March, 2023 to raise the full 15 Lakhs that we wished to raise. We hope to show you good results with all that we want to achieve!