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).
Welcome to the newest member of our team, Dr. Matthew Zuckerman (@matthew608b), who is an Assistant Professor in Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus. He will serve as our inaugural 2015 ALiEM-AAEM Social Media and Digital Scholarship Fellow, working on advancing medical education and upgrading the AAEM e-book “Rules of the Road for Young Emergency Physicians.”
The full title of Gerd Gigerenzer’s book is Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions [Amazon], which is exactly what makes this book so relevant, not just to the everyday reader, but to the medical reader. We make decisions every day in the medical field that range from the complex of intubating someone with low reserve or difficult airway anatomy to the less life-and-death decision of when to best time a quick food break between seeing patients. Of course, we also help our patients make very complex decisions, especially in the ED when time is short but risk can be high. And it certainly is not an easy task to attempt to bring family members up to speed on the ins and outs of intubation vs BiPAP or the complex statistics associated with radiation exposure when working up a pregnant patient with a potential pulmonary embolism. Gigerenzer’s book does a beautiful job of helping the reader not only understand how to break down the complexity of risk, but also how to go about explaining it.
In this month’s ALiEM Book Club selection, Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling, author Edgar Schein describes a model of communication termed “humble inquiry” which he defines as “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person”. Although a very quick read (100 short pages!), it is packed with profound insights about the way we communicate and a vision for what might be! Communication is so pertinent to our work in the medical field from encounters with our colleagues, our learners, and our patients. Striving to improve communication is a goal that every provider should have and this powerful book can help!
HOT OFF THE PRESS! We would like to announce a great opportunity for young physicians who belong to the American Academy of Emergency Medicine’s Young Physicians Section (AAEM YPS). Based on the early successes of our 2014-15 ALiEM-EMRA (for medical students) and ALiEM-CORD (for residents) fellowships, we are thrilled to be launching the 2015 ALiEM-AAEM Social Media and Digital Scholarship Fellowship for Young Physicians! The application process for this virtual fellowship is now open.
Case: A 18-year-old male with no medical history presents to the emergency department (ED) complaining of “feeling like I am having a heart attack” which started suddenly 1 hour ago. The patient ate from a food truck the night before and developed several episodes of forceful vomiting prior to arrival in the ED. What finding in this supine chest radiograph aids in the diagnosis? Click on image for a larger view.