Many residents and medical students are making career decisions that will last a lifetime. Some are aware of the financial considerations while others avoid discussing the topic for fear of being seen as shallow. This month’s ALiEM MEdIC series case considers how we might help a learners as they consider money in medicine. Please join us in discussing the case this month, we would love your thoughts and advice.
“Death, of course, is not a failure. Death is normal. Death may be the enemy, but it is also the natural order of things. I knew these truths abstractly, but I didn’t know them concretely – that they could be truths not just for everyone but also for this person right in front of me, for this person I was responsible for.” Atul Gawande, Being Mortal.
The Case of the Returning traveller generated thoughtful discussion over the past week. We are now proud to present to you the Curated Community Commentary and our two expert opinions. Thank-you again to all our experts and participants for contributing again this week to the ALiEM MEdIC series.
Many residents and medical students are engaging in international medical activities. Before departing many do (or should) undergo pre-departure training but how prepared are medical learners to return on the other end? Many struggle with “reverse culture shock”. This month’s ALiEM MEdIC series case considers how we might help a learner returning from an international elective. Please join us in discussing the case this month, we would love your thoughts and advice.
Although the title is ostensibly sinister, Darrell Huff’s “How to Lie with Statistics” is anything but. In medicine, we are faced with complicated statistics and “statisticulators” on a daily basis. And as the field of data science and statistics grows, so too does the complexity of these “statisticulations”. A statisticulation, defined by Huff, is “misinforming people with the use of statistical material” and, unfortunately, this is becoming all too common in the profit-driven world of medicine. With carefully crafted “non-inferiority” trials and overpowered industry-funded superiority trials cropping up in the literature, it would easy to give up on statistics altogether; but it’s imperative that we don’t. The key is harnessing the ability to identify the subtleties that statisticians use to misguide. As Huff eloquently states in his book, “The crooks already know these tricks; honest men [and women] must learn them in self-defense.”
Each year hundreds of residents apply to Pediatric Emergency Medicine (PEM) fellowships. There are multiple reasons that an EM resident might want to undertake a PEM fellowship, but over the last 15 years, fewer Emergency Medicine (EM) residents are applying for PEM fellowships than Pediatric residents, unpublished data suggesting that Pediatric candidates now outnumber EM candidates 20 to 1.
Recently, a group of PEM Fellowship Program Directors formed the “EM-to-PEM task force” of like-minded individuals desiring to promote PEM fellowships to EM residents. A PEM fellowship is an excellent career move for a resident who has a passion for the emergency care and advocacy of children. In this post, we will discuss and review benefits of EM residents undergoing a PEM fellowship.
We at ALiEM are incredibly excited to publicly announce the 2015-16 ALiEM Chief Resident (CR) Incubator. Every single year, I have seen Chief Residents struggle with their new role as a near-peer leader in the residency program. Because Chief Residents are generally high-functioning individuals, they usually figure it out as the year progresses. Why is it that we can’t we do better and prepare them for what is to come?