Teaching procedural skills in medical school is increasing falling on the shoulders of emergency physicians. Two common problems that arise are the equipment expenses and simulation of realism. Working with my colleague Dr. Jeff Tabas, we came up some creative ideas around the teaching of (1) the Seldinger technique for central line placement and (2) saphenous vein cutdown.
I came across a practical and insightful review article written by Dr. Mark Langdorf (editor-in-chief of West JEM) and Dr. Steve Hayden (editor-in-chief of Journal of EM) outlining how to write a manuscript for publication. This is a crucial skill because paper publications are the standard unit of currency in academics, which then translates into promotions and academic credibility. Although this article primarily targets novice manuscript writers, it’s always nice to get the perspectives from Mark and Steve, editors-in chief of two major EM journals.
I recently encountered a thought-provoking video about how technology is transforming education in the classroom setting. We are slowly experiencing a culture shift in how learners are learning. It follows that this should affect how teachers should be teaching. Briefly, the author lays out the progression of educational technology in 3 phases.
Practicing at an academic ED, such as in San Francisco General, I find that I am constantly surrounded by medical students, interns, and residents. Most are working on shift with me, but occasionally I have medical students shadowing me to learn more about the Emergency Medicine specialty.
Have you ever had a person shadow you (excluding your annoying little brother when you were a kid)? It’s actually a little stressful for me, because I want the shift to be a positive learning experience for them. Inevitably, it doesn’t take long before I get immersed in mundane troubleshooting activities (eg. calling to transfer a patient to another facility, coordinating the CT scan priority list, paging the inpatient team for admitting orders).
If a journal gets accepted it into the Medline database, it is viewed with significantly more legitimacy. It follows then that your academic CV is better regarded if your publications appear in journals which are listed on Medline. Plus, it’s just fun to see your name listed in Pubmed when you search yourself! Hmm, that sounded more egotistical than I intended, especially since I don’t have that many publications on Medline…
If only I had this flowchart when I was a first-year medical student! I too have always felt that emergency physicians have a little baseline crazy in them to be happy and successful in the specialty.
This diagram has been floating around the web for years now, and I wanted to share with you. It’s a humorous (partly because there’s some truth to it) decision tree on how to choose your medical specialty. Did you decide upon the right field?
