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!
Feb 9, 2023: Founder story – Presenting the need for a curriculum change: Invited to speak to a group of doctors
Date: Thursday February 9, 2023
Category: Founder Story
Keywords: Lecture, Literature searching, Marvelous Medicine Series, QMedCourses
When in school, I wanted to study Medicine. I could not pursue this field, for a number of personal reasons. My family humorously mentions that I got into Medicine “through the back door”. That is true – my life has just evolved in this profession.
To the extent that I recently had an opportunity to speak about introducing a change in the curriculum.
A friend of mine – Dr Ravi Shankar, is an alumnus from my school. We have been in touch over years. He recently happened to read one of my LinkedIn posts highlighting an interesting article about ethics in authorship. He asked me if I would speak at the “Marvelous Medicine Series”.
He went on to tell me more about the lecture series. It was an initiative that was started by alumni from JIPMER, Puducherry (he is an alumnus from that college), during the Pandemic. The series became so popular that it has continued later on too. Every Wednesday they have a talk by someone on a core medical topic or on something useful for the health professions.
I was delighted to learn about this and accepted the invitation. Dr Ravi introduced me to Dr Vidya who coordinated the show. The three of us had a quick discussion and they were happy to accept my topic:
Literature Searching Skills: An Urgent Need in the Curriculum
This event was an opportunity to appeal to a large number of doctors – and get them interested in our Mission. I had to make sure that I had the best of content and that I should definitely finish it in the allotted time, keeping people well engaged. I took a good two days to prepare for it – right from preparing a mind-map plan, to revising the slides a number of times and rehearsing the timings.
I shared with the audience – some of the observations I had made in the profession. About many students and professionals losing precious time. They did not have the exposure to the skills of structured searching and referencing. From residents struggling with their theses – to doctors battling with correct referencing – to those who needed advanced help with their systematic review searches.
I gave them a glimpse of what these skills were and how they made a difference. Both in terms of time (national hours) saved, and about the better basis for research. I talked about QMed’s work. I told them why we felt that it was important to learn these skills right from the UG stage and not later. Finally, I asked them to connect with me to share their inputs – telling them that it was vital that we collaborated and approached the commissions and councils together.
I finished my presentation in the allotted 40-45 minutes and then enjoyed the discussions that followed. It was wonderful that senior faculty and practitioners appreciated the talk and agreed with this need. The chat window was flooded with comments about the need to include these skills in the UG stage. We also had related discussions – deliberated about the possibility of AI taking over in future. (Yes – we need to be open to that!). T
I now await the recording of the session, so that we could share it with a larger audience and get more people involved in our quest – getting the National Medical Commission to implement our teaching in all medical colleges. After all, they have mentioned in their Foundation Course document (page 64):
Students should be introduced to the basic use of word and power point, familiar with search engines, in performing a literature search and accessing online resources.
Jan 23, 2023: Program story – Sikkim Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences – a Model Institution
The Sikkim Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences (SMIMS) located in Gangtok is, for QMed a dream institution!
They were amongst the first institutions, which subscribed to our ELearning courses, when we had them hosted with Mediknit. At that time, they were the only institution that ensured that majority completed all courses. At the end of one year, they took a break. Later when we launched our courses on www.qmedcourses.in, they came back to us for two whole years.
Some of the feedback we received by participants of the program:
- I highly appreciate the initiative as this would largely enable researchers to utilize their time efficiently
- This course has provided me with the information on some minute details of research and the searching process
- I learned the skill of teaching along with learning PubMed!
- I liked how the questionnaire had different attempts so that we can go back and find the answer
- The most interesting part is the distribution of timing for each subtopic
- I have been using PubMed for about 5 years and I have now learnt many features from this course that I never knew before.
Why do we call SMIMS a Dream Institution? Two of their Professors who were the main coordinators made the effort to ensure that the institution made full usage of the learning opportunities we offered. When we asked them what all they did to ensure full usage, they responded:
- They made a single point of contact in every department. This person was responsible to motivate people in the department to register and complete the course.
- They sent reminders for completion to: The specific person in every department; Next – individually to all participants; Third – asked QMed to send to all
- They made it mandatory to submit the certificates for various purposes
We at QMed now want to share these methods with all colleges, showing SMIMS as a role model.
That is a great story, but….
The other side is that SMIMS, after two years of subscription have not decided to renew their access. We are waiting to discuss it further, but it brings us back to our regular challenge – “Why do institutions not consider this learning to be a must for every new batch of students and all new faculty? We are waiting to find out more from SMIMS. Once we learn, we will have to figure out more answers and rework our communications.
Till then:
We ARE very grateful to SMIMS for having been a model institution and for sharing their methodology with us.
We still hope they will change their minds and renew their access once more; this time ensuring that the undergrad medical students will also be made to do the courses.
We continue to be in the quest of finding the best way to ensure every institution’s acceptance of the reality:
“Literature Searching & Referencing are skills that need to be taught in a structured manner and must be made compulsory in the curriculum”.
Jan 9, 2023: Program Story – Grant Medical College, Mumbai invited us to talk to the students of the I MBBS program during their Foundation Course
Date: Monday January 9, 2023
Category: Program Update
Keywords: JJ Hospital, Literature searching, MBBS, Program story
In November 2022, AIIMS Kalyani had invited us to speak with the I MBBS students who were going through the Foundation Course. This was an online lecture. Every medical college has been conducting this course since 2019. The objective is to sensitize fresh medical students about the required knowledge and skills for their professional environment. It stresses on the medical graduate preparing to be a lifelong learner and developing strong leadership and communication skills.
In December, the Grant Medical College & JJ Hospital, Mumbai invited me to offer the lecture for its Foundation Course. This was a live session, held in their prestigious Anatomy Hall, a charming old construction. While in the recent years, this hall became famous via the movie “Munnabhai MBBS”, it is a matter of pride that many eminent doctors from all over India and the world have addressed medical gatherings here. I personally cherish the opportunity of having spoken in this hall more than once.
As I had done for the AIIMS Kalyani talk, I stressed on the need for reading beyond textbooks. I explained about journals and other resources. I then introduced them to the “structured fundamentals” of online searching. I gave them a bird’s eye view on how tagging search terms and using Boolean operators could make a difference. The good thing about a live session is that I could make students answer questions and ensure that they understood these fundamentals. I shared with them about how they could learn much more by enrolling in our courses.
More importantly, I believe I have sown the seeds of interest in research. I told them that while they had an option of pursuing research as a career choice, it was vital that they understood research, in order to do good practice. That I believe is a great contribution. I have in the last many years, interacted with students, who mentioned that they wished they had had been told more about research in their early years. I made them aware of it in their first month. I hope the seeds I have sown, result in all of them understanding research well!
Dec 12, 2022: Foundation story – QMed celebrates its 15th birthday – December 2022
Date: Thursday December 22, 2022
Category: Organisation Founding Story
Keywords: Family, Founding story, Organization story, Satff
A family celebrates the birth of a child and it often appears that in no time the child grows up. That is the feeling we got this month when we completed 15 years of QMed’s registration.
We had a simple celebration in office, with a reaffirmation and commitment towards our mission.
What have we achieved in the last 15 years? Delivered around 520 lectures, conducted 245 workshops, launched our ELearning platform in which we registered more than 5000 participants and overall reached out to more than 35000 health sciences students & professionals.
We have had excellent feedback from majority who completed our courses – stressing that these courses must be in the curriculum.
While we have done lots, our eyes are constantly on the denominator, which is massive. We still have to reach out to this denominator – consisting of every health science student and professional – with our skills and knowledge.
We wonder – with all our efforts and with the excellent feedback, why our offerings are not being utilized quickly. We did some intense brainstorming on various aspects and it seems to boil down to one point.
“They don’t know what they don’t know”. Right from decision makers in the health sciences education, to policy makers, they are unaware that there IS a structured method of searching the online literature and a right methodology to reference correctly. Not knowing this, they do not prioritize the need to teach these skills.
We continuously think of what more we can do to solve this problem.
We explored collaborations to reach out to all educational institutions, and started a “top down approach” by meeting Vice Chancellors, Secretaries of the Govt and more. We have told them about our desire to make a positive change. We shared that we offer our knowledge and skills so that students and professionals save lots of time, carry out better research and ensure a return on the investment their institutions make, in online information resources.
Internally we are constantly working at strengthening our offerings:
- Create more courses
- Update the existing ones as the platforms evolve (PubMed & Mendeley)
- Explore how we can use technologies to enhance the courses
As I write this update, we have just completed one significantly MAJOR change in our courses. We have added lots more test questions for the final assessment of each course. Now participants can attempt the assessment as many times as they wish to. Every time, they will attempt a mix of new and old questions as they generate randomly. With different questions each time, they can improve their skills with more testing. With these unlimited attempts, they can download a “best score” certificate!
We have “miles to go before we sleep” – to ensure that this learning becomes part of the health sciences curricula. We invite you to share ideas, inputs, donate / help us raise funds until our work sustains itself!