EM Clinical Decision Rules iBook

As educational content, which was traditionally published in the form of textbooks, get repurposed into blog posts, podcasts, and videos, iBooks have been a bit slower to take hold. They can replace print textbooks, if done from a thoughtful design-based approach such as by Drs. Matthew Dawson and Mike Mallin in their Introduction to EM Ultrasound (volume 1 and 2) iBooks. Here’s another iBook entitled “EM Clinical Decision Rules” involving pulmonary embolism (PE) and minor head trauma by Drs. Shannon McNamara, Christine Knettel, and David Wald.

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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-01-28T21:51:24-08:00Mar 2, 2014|Medical Education, Social Media & Tech|

MEdIC Series: The Case of the Culture Clash

Our hospitals are abound with international citizens who travel across the globe to learn about medicine. Frequently, individuals complete some aspect of their training in another country, bringing with them their own cultural perspectives. This month in the MEdIC Series, we invite you to discuss a case of culture clash and how consider how our learners’ backgrounds can affect their medical education. Join Mary in her tribulations as she considers how to approach the very different styles of her learners: Jane, Irina, and Shamila.

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By Teresa Chan, MD, MHPE|2017-01-04T18:32:43-08:00Feb 28, 2014|MEdIC series|

Does The Medium Change The Culture?

According to Paul Levinson, a Marshall McLuhan scholar, “The medium is the message” in the digital age means that the way we use the medium to consume and produce information is much more important than the content itself. This phrase originated from a book authored by Marshall McLuhan in 1964 called Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. McLuhan talked about the electronic age as a catalyst for creating a global village. These were some of McLuhan’s viewpoints even before the Internet had been invented. If the ultimate purpose of publishing is to communicate with each other, we should explore how we are carrying on this endeavor, its effects on our thinking process and practices via current medium.

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By Javier Benitez, MD|2026-06-16T16:05:05-07:00Feb 27, 2014|Medical Education|

Vote which Annals of EM articles to be open-access in June

In line with our prior two months of voting, we are back again to ask for your help in choosing which two articles from the June Annals of EM issue will be open access. Take a look at the article abstracts accepted for publication in June’s issue. Vote on your top two choices over the next 4 days, and the top two will be made open after the June issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine goes online.

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By Natalie Desouza, MD|2016-11-11T19:48:17-08:00Feb 26, 2014|Medical Education|

ALiEM Bookclub: Drive – Synopsis and Discussion

Why do we do what we do?

This is the question at the heart of this month’s ALiEM Book Club selection. Drive ¹ , by author Daniel Pink, discusses the history of motivational theory before provocatively making the case that we’re doing it wrong. He argues that having met our base desires (food, drink, sex), a reliance on extrinsic motivators (reward and punishment) will stifle intrinsic motivation and prevent us from functioning at our highest capacity. The three features described for optimizing intrinsic motivation are:

Autonomy: control over task (what we do), time (when we do it), team (who we do it with), and technique (how we do it)
Mastery: the desire to get better at what we do using a mindset of improvement and working through challenges of appropriate difficulty
Purpose: being part of a cause that is greater and more enduring than ourselves

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By Brent Thoma, MD MA|2016-11-11T19:19:19-08:00Feb 21, 2014|Book Club|

Expertise in Clinical Decision Making

We make decisions every day, all day long. Sometimes we are aware of it and sometimes we are not. Our decision process is affected by many factors. Some are under our conscious control while others are not. In order to sharpen our decision process, we gain knowledge, practice, and then reflect. We are selective and gain knowledge from different sources, practice in the appropriate setting, and reflect alone or with others for feedback. It is important to explore all possible clinical reasoning pathways as we don’t know which process will get us in the right path.

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By Javier Benitez, MD|2026-06-16T16:05:03-07:00Feb 21, 2014|Medical Education|

Where is the pedagogy in flipped classrooms?

As you are aware there has been lots of discussion going on about the concept of flipping the classroom in education these days. ALiEM recently hosted a book club where Salman Khan’s book (The One World School House: Education Reimagined) was featured in a Google Hangout. Khan, an ex-hedge fund manager, started making videos to help his niece with her math homework years ago. These videos ended up on YouTube and became quite popular. It wasn’t until later with the help of Bill Gates that he formed The Khan Academy and popularized the concept of the flipped classroom.

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By Javier Benitez, MD|2026-06-16T16:04:57-07:00Feb 7, 2014|Medical Education|