The movement of FOAM and #FOAMed may have started in a pub in Dublin in 2012, but it has become legitimized through widespread acceptance. Residencies are also catching onto the idea and eager to collaborate through social media, in particular Twitter. This is evidenced by the use of Twitter accounts on #EMConf as a way to collect educational learning pearls garnered weekly at resident conferences.

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” – Plutarch

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In this digital age, it is somewhat assumed that you know how to manage all the digital information coming at you in the forms of email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds. Even if you only partake in email as your primary communication platform, information still can be quite overwhelming as a trainee or practicing medical provider. At a the annual Bay Area EM residency conference last week, Dr. Charlotte Wills (Highland), Dr. Rebecca Smith-Coggins (Stanford) and I were invited by Dr. Esther Chen (UCSF-SFGH) to share some our personal insights and advice on a panel. We quickly realized that this is indeed a hot topic which often gets subsumed under the larger umbrella of “Wellness”.

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