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!
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!
August 21, 2023: THIRST For AIIMS – Major progress
In our July 9 communication of Donor Connect, mentioned about the THIRST For AIIMS project being on the “take off mode”. July turned out to be great for us as we did sessions in AIIMS Raipur (July 14), AIIMS Guwahati (July 20) and AIIMS Kalyani (July 22).
We had varied experiences with each institution as we planned the events. AIIMS Raipur gave us only 1.5 hours of time. AIIMS Guwahati gave three hours and Kalyani gave two three hour slots. We had offered a full day session to all.
But over years I have figured out how to handle sessions of varying length, how much to teach and more. Importantly I convey one message to all. That there is a very structured method of literature searching and referencing and that if people invest time in learning these skills they gain a large time saving in their professional life. Most often at the end of the session, people themselves express their feelings – that they need longer sessions!
In every institution I had discussions with people about how we can make sure that majority in their institution finish all of our courses.
An interesting addition was that many participants asked me about how I could speak and present very well. The second question that was interesting was – how I had the energy to speak the whole day without losing energy and keep an audience engaged. These questions made me feel good.
I had to first acknowledge the “genetic element” – that my father and grandfather were great teachers and orators and that their skills had crept into my genes. Regarding the energy element, I told them it was a mix of passion, love of teaching, and most recently having gone through NLP processes that added extra energy into me!
In addition to the above workshops, July offered the opportunity for a lecture at NIPER – National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Guwahati.
August 2023
Things peaked and through the Thirst for AIIMS grant, we did one workshop in AIIMS Rae Bareli (August 8), two in AIIMS Bhopal (11th and 12th) and one in AIIMS Jodhpur. All of them were full day workshops too. One of the workshops in Bhopal had two MBBS students, one who was in his first year! And he answered the toughest quiz question correctly. These are “Aha” moments for us – as we are able to convince the concerned people that these skills need to be introduced in the UG curriculum and students are capable of learning them
With this we have done events in six AIIMS institutions and need to do four more. We are sure of completing these pretty soon.
Check out our past “Donor Connects” – https://www.qmed.ngo/donor-connect/
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We seek your wishes
Our commitment to reach out to all institutions stays strong. We are working hard at this and need your best wishes to take our mission ahead!
We invite you to join us in our journey. When you give monetarily or with your time/expertise, you are part of a history which we are creating. You could connect us to people who matter – in the National Medical Commission / ICMR and similar bodies. You could help us reach medical colleges and similar institutions. And of course – monetary donations are vital, till we reach all institutions and they help us sustain this work.