Simulation Trick of the Trade: Blindfold the Leader

Simulations are routine now in medical training. But sometimes routine can start to get boring! All learners now know, especially for high fidelity simulations, to prepare for the unexpected. The stable patient will inevitably crash, maybe when your back is turned; the confederate in the room may or may not be a friend or a foe, you may never know! But these twists have become so integral to the simulation case that most learners know how to deal with it, or at the least know to anticipate it. But here is an idea for adding a new challenge to a stale simulation case. Blindfold the leader!

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By Nikita Joshi, MD|2016-11-11T19:03:25-08:00Aug 31, 2013|Medical Education, Simulation, Tricks of the Trade|

Crisis Resource Management

CRM and SBT… just another set of acronyms in the world of medical education? Don’t we already have enough??

Not quite! Rather, Crisis Resource Management (CRM) is a complementary approach to Simulation Based Training (SBT). It can enhance current ongoing medical simulations or provide foundation for a vigorous curriculum when launching new simulation programs.

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By Nikita Joshi, MD|2016-11-11T19:02:50-08:00Aug 16, 2013|Medical Education, Simulation|

Introducing #EMConf Twitter Hashtag

I would like to share with the national and global community an opportunity to participate in the weekly generation of learning pearls from Emergency Medicine residency conferences. The majority of U.S. EM residencies gather faculty and residents together on a weekly basis for a half-day of education on material covering the basics of EM education. This is happening in isolated silos at the individual learning institutions. And up until now it was difficult to share the wealth of knowledge gained outside of the learning institutions in real-time.

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By Nikita Joshi, MD|2016-11-11T19:02:49-08:00Aug 12, 2013|Medical Education, Social Media & Tech|

NPR Ted Talks: A non-medical podcast ready to inspire

Most of us have heard of TED talks and most of us have heard of NPR. But did you know that the two have paired together to give a fascinating weekly radio discussion? Since March 2013, NPR reporter and radio host Guy Raz (@NPRGuyRaz) has brought together innovators, leaders, and entrepreneurs among others to the radio format to inspire and enlighten the listener. This amazing free resource is a valuable non-medical podcast for doctors to access.

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By Nikita Joshi, MD|2018-01-30T02:14:40-08:00Jul 26, 2013|Medical Education, Social Media & Tech|

ALiEM Book Club: THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO – Join the conversation

New Horizons

Do you like the ALiEM Book Club? Well we like you too!… so much so that we want YOU to join in on the next book discussion! We are taking the blog and book club to another level by pairing up with Dr. Teresa Chan (@TChanMD), an academic emergentologist from Canada. We are breaking the barriers of the internet and laying the foundation for a real-time, interactive discussion utilizing social media.

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By Nikita Joshi, MD|2016-11-16T09:37:58-08:00Jul 22, 2013|Book Club|

ALiEM Book Club: Difficult Conversations

Debriefing is a difficult skill to acquire. It is a little to easy to ask accusatory questions when you witness things that went wrong, or in a direction not anticipated. It’s also hard when trying to keep your own horror and shock from what you just witnessed (how could you forget to get a fingerstick glucose??!!). But rarely these types of learning situations go well if we don’t learn how to develop high quality debriefing skills. Similarly without debriefing expertise, simulations that we conduct lose purpose and meaning. There are many ways to learn effective debriefing skills, and I want to share a reference that many of my simulation mentors gave me when I began building my niche in education. Reading the book “Difficult Conversations” by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen of the Harvard Negotiation Project will help you gain understanding of how to approach debriefing and maximize learning in a safe environment.

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By Nikita Joshi, MD|2016-11-11T19:02:33-08:00Jul 19, 2013|Book Club, Simulation|

Mass Casualty Anticipation – An essential, instinctual skill of EM physicians

Emergency medicine is full of surprises, twists, and turns. We don’t know what type of patient we will encounter prior to a shift, but we are ready for any and all. That being said, preparation is essential prior to the arrival of critical patients. This is why the airway cart is checked before starting a shift or the position of the bedside ultrasound machine is always mentally tracked in order to quickly grab if needed.

Unfortunately, individual preparation is not sufficient for large scale disasters. This level of preparation must happen on a hospital and interdepartmental level such as coordination between trauma surgery, orthopedics, and emergency medicine with agreed upon policies.

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By Nikita Joshi, MD|2016-11-11T19:02:31-08:00Jul 12, 2013|Medical Education, Trauma|

About Nikita Joshi, MD

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