One shared experience amongst all emergency physicians is the “handoff” or “signout” of patients at the end of your shift to the oncoming physician. A recent article in Annals of Emergency Medicine explores and explains how this process can often lead to delays and errors in patient management. Just envision ED handoffs as a high-stakes game of Telephone, which you played as a child.
U.S. medical students traditionally spend the first 3 years of training in a pre-determined curriculum. In their 4th year, however, students have significant flexibility in how they tailor their time. For this last year before residency, they shift from a learner-centered curriculum to a patient-centered curriculum. There is a shift in mentality from “I am here to learn as much as I can about medicine” to more of a “How do I best prepare myself for working in a hospital in my chosen specialty?”
Website: www.emrapee.com
The EM-RAP Educator’s Edition podcast just released its 6th podcast episode. Dr. Rob Rogers et al discuss practical tips and approaches to giving feedback on medical student presentations. Presentations in the ED are very different from those in other specialties, such as internal medicine and surgery. The discussants dissect and comment on parts of the presentation.
Journals use the numerical “Impact Factor” as an indirect quantitative measure of a journal’s importance in the medical field and scientific literature. Thompson Scientific calculates the impact factor scores annually. This score provides journals with bragging rights, especially when it comes to marketing. Be aware that there are ways to manipulate the numbers a little and thus brings the true value of this score into question.
The impact factor is a calculation of how frequent a journal’s articles are cited in a 2-year period. As an example, the 2009 impact factor for a journal would be:
The ambiguous issue is how the denominator of “citable items” is determined. Basically articles which qualify as potentially citable items include original research, reviews, proceedings, and notes. These do not include such items as editorials, coresspondences, and errata. Sometimes it’s unclear which articles don’t qualify. The more articles that you exclude, the smaller your denominator and thus the higher (and better) the impact factor.
Below are impact factors of several journals, relevant to those interested in publishing in EM and medical education. In addition to impact factors, you should also consider the journal’s general focus when deciding where to submit your manuscript. If you read through several back-issues, you will get a sense of each journal’s “flavor”:
Are you a medical educator and can’t quite illustrate the importance and impact of your work in your CV?
I’ve always had this problem when compiling and updating my CV. The traditional CV format caters especially to academic physicians who are active in public service, traditional research, and leadership positions. What about the great procedural course that you ran with stellar evaluations? What about the lecture you gave at a national conference?
Dr. Rob Rogers (Univ Maryland) has come up with yet another podcast edition for the EMRAP Educator’s Edition website. In this recording, Rob interviews EM faculty about education issues. Go to EMRAP Educator’s Edition website to listen to podcast.
Are you interested in pursuing a career in medical education in Emergency Medicine? Do you know what that exactly means and entails? It’s not just teaching medical students or residents. It’s now much more than that.
