MEdIC series: The Case of the Difficult Consult

Inspired by the Harvard Business Review Cases and led by Dr. Teresa Chan (@TChanMD) and Dr. Brent Thoma (@BoringEM), the Medical Education In Cases (MEdIC) series puts difficult medical education cases under a microscope. On the fourth Friday of the month we will pose a challenging hypothetical dilemma, moderate a discussion on potential approaches, and recruit medical education experts to provide “Gold Standard” responses. Cases and responses will be made available for download in pdf format – feel free to use them!

If you’re a medical educator with a pedagogical problem, we want to get you a MEdiC. Send us your most difficult dilemmas and help the rest of us to bring our teaching game to the next level.

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By Brent Thoma, MD MA|2016-11-11T19:03:34-08:00Aug 30, 2013|MEdIC series|

The Checklist Manifesto: ALiEM Book Club Synopsis

Our dear readers have chimed in and we’ve received amazing commentary and feedback regarding this month’s book The Checklist Manifesto. Please read the summary of the discussion below.

CHECKLISTS ARE EVERYWHERE IN EMERGENCY MEDICINE

Our readers have spotted checklists in a number of places including PALS/ACLS algorithms, Procedural Sedation protocols, and Clinical Decision Rules. Dr. Javier Benitez (@jvrbntz) stated that he uses a checklist for resuscitations at the start of shifts. Dr. Michelle Lin (@M_Lin) stated “We already use our own mental checklists in Med[icine]. It’s just not explicitly shared. Should have more overt shared checklists.”

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By Teresa Chan, MD, MHPE|2019-02-19T18:09:09-08:00Aug 23, 2013|Book Club, Social Media & Tech|

Heuristics and Cognitive Errors in Diagnostic Reasoning

Medical error is among the top ten causes of death in the United States, and while there are different forms and sources, diagnostic error is one of the most significant and consequential. Graber et al, 2002 classifies diagnostic error as one of 3 types:

No-fault error
System error
Cognitive error

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By C. Kene Nwoye, MD|2016-11-11T19:02:52-08:00Aug 21, 2013|Medical Education|

Retrieval Practice: 10 benefits of testing

Tests terrify people, especially when used for summative assessment. But in reality, tests have also helped students learn the material. Retrieval practice, also known as test enhanced learning or the testing effect, has been demonstrated to have more benefits than re-studying the material or multiple choice tests. As per Henry L. Roediger et al.

If students are quizzed frequently, they tend to study more and with more regularity. Quizzes also permit students to discover gaps in their knowledge and focus study efforts on difficult material; furthermore, when students study after taking a test, they learn more from the study episode than if they had not taken the test…

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By Javier Benitez, MD|2019-02-19T18:08:43-08:00Aug 19, 2013|Medical Education|

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|

Hero spotlight: Dr.Todd Raine

There are incredible people doing incredibly inspiring work in Emergency Medicine. I wanted to restart the hero series, which had fallen off the radar a few years ago, featuring amazing people in our specialty. Today’s hero spotlight is on Dr. Todd Raine (@RaineDoc). He is a Staff Physician and IT Coordinator at the Providence Healthcare Department of EM and Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia’s Department of EM. Despite these notable accomplishments, he is famous in the social media world for his innovative creation of a Google-based EM search engine GoogleFOAM.com, which many of us use to perform social media site searches online in the field of EM. His search engine is a “unified search of all FOAM sources on the Web.”

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By Michelle Lin, MD|2017-03-05T14:18:36-08:00Aug 15, 2013|Medical Education, Social Media & Tech|

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|