“Our life revolves around Chernobyl. Where were you when it 
happened, how far from the reactor did you live? What did you see? Who died? Who left? Where did they go? I remember in the first months the night life started buzzing again – “you only live once,” “if we’re going to die, let’s do it to music.” The soldiers came and the officers came. But now Chernobyl is with us every day. No matter what happens, everyone says: Chernobyl. pg 116
It’s been another amazing year here at ALiEM. The beginning of a new year is a time to reflect about where we have been and where we are hoping to go! In the past year, we have continued to see a rapid growth of innovations and projects. Under the leadership of Dr. Michelle Lin, the ALiEM team has grown to become an international organization with over 50 volunteers all helping to not only write for the blog (such as the new Healthy in EM series), but also to create new projects like our Chief Resident incubator (affectionately known as the “CRincubator”), 60-Second Soap Box, and ALiEMU!
Thanks to the leadership and design expertise of our ALiEM Digital Fellowship team, we have assembled an annual report to update everyone on our projects this year. We are proud to present our 2015 Annual Report, which highlights many projects and collaborations, as well as some behind the scenes insights.
There is a great need for faculty development, also known as professional development, in medicine and more specifically medical education. A recent JGME publication advocates for more online opportunities for faculty to join digital communities of practice and communities of inquiry to harness the power of experts and mentors worldwide [free PDF]. With our recent successes with the Chief Resident Incubator, which includes over 170 EM chief residents in North America, it was only a natural evolution for us to build a faculty-based incubator.
Thus we are proud and excited to announce that applications are now open for the new 2016-17 ALiEM Faculty Incubator for educator-scholars ready to take their careers to the next level — from theory to application. Applications are open NOW. Here are the top 5 reasons we are incredibly excited about this collaborative opportunity in education scholarship.
As a practicing Emergency Medicine physician, I have spent almost the last decade of my life immersed in a culture of medical education. Actually, not quite accurate, as I have spent my life since middle school years either studying for one standardized test to another, or buffing my CV with medical related volunteering experiences in pursuit of my medical aspirations. Even prior to beginning medical school, I was drawn to the culture of medicine, what I saw as a commitment to altruism, and dedication to preserving patient health and quality of life.
In my actual training, most apparent during those grueling residency years, I was exposed to another culture of medicine; this period of my life was composed of fatigue, imposter syndrome, fear that my actions or ineptitude could directly cause patient harm or death. These emotions and feeling were just as present as my desire to heal and serve. I know that my experience is not unique, but what I didn’t know was the fascinating history of how this culture of medicine, and medical education has evolved since before the original establishment of residency education at Johns Hopkins in 1889. As the famous quote states, “those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it”, which underlies the importance of reading and reflecting upon Let Me Heal: The Opportunity to Preserve Excellence in American Medicine by Dr. Kenneth M. Ludmerer [Link].
It is with great pleasure that announce our 2015-2016 ALiEM Fellows for Social Media and Digital Scholarship: Dr. Alissa Mussell from West Virginia University Emergency Medicine Residency Program and Dr. Matthew Klein from Northwestern University Emergency Medicine Residency Program. That’s right, we selected two applicants! The competition was very strong, but we felt that our growth at ALiEM has been so tremendous since we launched in 2009, and most especially in the last year that we could foster the mentoring and development of both of these stellar candidates.
We are very excited to begin the recruitment for the 2015-2016 ALiEM Social Media and Digital Scholarship Fellowship! The application process for this virtual fellowship is open as of right now to interested Emergency Medicine residents and medical students, including those who are international!
Open Access is not just an issue that plagues scientists and clinical 
practitioners. Allowing access to scholarly publications and academic work is also widely debated in the humanities as well. We found this out as we sat down and discussed Open Access with Dr. Martin Eve (@martin_eve).