You had donated to our Foundation, for a project "Helping 100 Postgraduate Medical Students Do Better Research For Their Thesis", in October 2016. Once again - a heartfelt thank you for your donation. Here is a report of progress till date

Highlight:

One of the students (Dr Rukman) who had attended our workshop earlier but joined this program as well - said:

"Thanks to this workshop, I was able to complete my thesis protocol and get the Ethics committee approval in no time. Normally it could take much longer. And then after repeating the workshop, I was able to find lots more references than I did, with my first attempt".

The beginning of the project:

In November and December 2016, we had to do a fair bit of planning for executing the project. The best outcome of this was that the Director of Medical Education & Hospitals - Dr AV Supe, who is also the Dean of KEM Hospital gladly permitted us to use a facility in KEM for conducting the workshops, at a very marginal cost. He also circulated the notice about our project to other Deans. On our first workshop, he sent a "Good-Wishes" message for the entire program.

The President of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors also promised to help us by sending out messages about our project to all postgraduate students in the city

The first workshops:

Between January 2017 and end March 2017, we conducted five workshops covering 31 PG students. Two more students who had done the workshop earlier also enrolled for this project as they wanted support for their thesis. Both of them attended the workshop again as a refresher activity.

A lull and temporary suspension:

We had to suspend workshops in April and May for a few reasons. In the end of March, resident doctors had a strike due to violence incidents they faced. Post this they compensated by working longer, and the authorities also were occupied with this issue. Also the institution had problems with their Internet connectivity in the workshop venue, and we needed to wait for that issue to be resolved. And then I (Vasumathi Sriganesh) have to travel abroad for a conference. The project will resume in June 2017. The good news is that I will be presenting an interim report about this project as a poster, to an International Audience of medical librarians in the USA. And I have highlighted the fund raising activity.

Overall satisfaction for participants:

The thirty one students who completed the workshop are all very happy with what they have learned. They were specially grateful that we conducted workshops on Sundays (four Sundays and one Saturday) - as they get to come more easily on Sundays. Extracts from the feedback forms:

Given the heavy schedule of residency, thesis work consumes a lot of time and most of us end up doing it just for the sake of completion.Reference writing and review of literature can be a nightmare without this. Now I can save a lot of time and yet write a good thesis.

 It should be compulsory for the 1st years when they are starting their thesis.

After the workshop i really understood that why my searches never yeilded specific results.

Hitches in execution:

The main hitches we faced in executing the programs are:

a) Promotion: While lots has happened for promoting the workshop, it appears that there is a need for more face to face interactions with Deans, Faculty and PGs to motivate them to join

Going ahead, we plan to do more face to face interactions

b) Time: Residents have very heavy working hours and only Sundays seem feasible for most. AT KEM, Sundays being a holiday, there are some constraints in the facility and timing.

KEM is examining the possibility of an alternate venue for our use, by which these constraints can be resolved

Overall, while the speed of execution is slower than what we would like it to be, we are happy with the success of the project. We will more details as we go. And once the conference is over (end May), I will share the poster as well.

If you wish to follow the progress of this workshop - here is the link: www.qmed.ngo/100pgs. 

If you wish to give us any suggestions, do write to us at [email protected]

A big thank you once again and best wishes.