Bridging the quality gap: Becoming a peer-reviewed blog

We are now a peer-reviewed blog.
Starts today.

I have been frustrated (in a good way) by the recent social media discussions (see BoringEM.com) about how social media content is viewed with a skeptical eye by medical educators, academicians, and professionals because of the lack of formal quality-control mechanisms.

Common questions from skeptics:

• "Is it peer-reviewed?"
• "How can I tell that it is a quality blog post?"

These are reasonable questions to ask. These questions, however, can not be answered with traditional answers.

• Blogs with greater web traffic most likely have higher-quality content by word of mouth and external linking from other websites. 
• The power of the crowd "course-corrects" for errors, such as Wikipedia. 

Still these are not very satisfying answers. Can we do better?

Social media-based medical education (FOAMed = Free Open Access Meducation) has gained much popularity through a grass-roots approach, but now faces a glass-ceiling effect. Learners gravitate towards it, but traditional educators still shy away from it. Blogs often fall short when compared to the gold standard of print journals, which have a formal peer-review editorial system for quality control. This remains the gold standard despite known faults and biases in the system.

So this past weekend, I was frustrated into action!

I experimented with several blog models (example) to create a more formal peer-review process. The basic premise is that the power of the crowd should not be undervalued, as demonstrated by the star ranking system on commercial sites such as Amazon, Yelp, and Netflix. Think about the last time you revised your purchases based on reviews. Similarly, our star-rating system, which will be seen at the top of our blog posts, can now help readers assess the quality of each blog post, to assist less discriminating readers regarding content quality.

To make this work, I hope that our readers will help the FOAMed community by rating each blog topic that they read using the following criteria, which mirrors similar metrics for journal manuscripts:

At the bottom of each blog post, raters will be asked to give optional, anonymous demographic information about themselves to help demonstrate external validity.

Under this form will be a public link to the Demographics results (sample Google Docs sheet), in case people are interested.

In this past weekend's experiment, I received 6 peer reviews in the first 4 hours, which included 1 medical student, 1 resident, 3 practicing physicians, and 1 paramedic from 2 countries. (Thanks to those who responded!) How amazing is that? Contrast that to print journals who typically have 2-3 peer reviewers read your manuscript.

Now the question is: How many crowd-sourced reviewers will be needed to demonstrate an adequate quality-control process? I don't know. The more the better, I assume.  

Comments?

Twitter is the digital watercooler in Medicine

I just don't have time to join Twitter.

Are you serious, Twitter?

Being in the minority of medical providers who use Twitter for work, these are common responses I hear. I would make the counter argument that it has given me opportunities to learn, collaborate, and share on a much more efficient level. 

The best argument that I can come up with is that it is the new digital, global watercooler in Medicine. The difference from your current watercooler area is that this area includes global thought-leaders and educators. Seriously, who wouldn't want to eavesdrop on conversations and learn from leaders like Amal Mattu, Scott Weingart, and Mike Cadogan?

• It's where we hear of interesting new studies or controversial clinical tips. 
• It's where we bounce ideas off each other so that we go off and learn more on our own. 
• It's where we see practice variations worldwide.

Question to the collective: 

What has been your best argument for why one should join Twitter? 

Here's my recent "Digital Watercooler" article in Emergency Physicians Monthly. This will launch a new EP Monthly column capturing Twitter conversations, written by our very own Dr. Javier Benítez! Keep a lookout for it.

Medical students: Looking for 2013 SAEM meeting ambassadors!

Are you a medical student interested in EM and going to be near Atlanta in May 2013? Apply for this great opportunity! Here is the announcement from SAEM:

Opportunity: Medical Student Ambassadors to 2013 SAEM Annual Meeting

SAEM is looking for 17 energetic, responsible and enthusiastic medical students to work with the SAEM Program Committee at the Annual Meeting in Atlanta, May 15-18, 2013. This is a great opportunity to network with faculty members from EM programs around the country. If you are interested, please visit the SAEM website.

Benefits for medical student committee members:

• Waiver of your registration fee to the SAEM Annual Meeting*
• Learn much more about the current research and educational activities taking place in the field of EM
• Have the opportunity to form relationships with faculty members from EM programs around the country. 
• A personal letter from the Committee Chair will be sent to your Dean of Student Affairs, acknowledging your contributions to the Program Committee.

Requirements and expectations of medical student committee members:

• Arrive the late evening of May 14th and stay through 3pm on May 18th.* 
• Attend daily Program Committee meetings
• Seeing to assigned tasks and responsibilities, which include, but are not limited to:

         - Approximately 6-8 hours of responsibilities per day
         - Soliciting reviews
         - Assisting in AV needs
         - Facilitating workshops
         - Being responsive and flexible to the needs of the Program Committee

Interested medical students should submit their name and contact information to the SAEM office by emailing Michelle Iniguez at miniguez@saem.org. Please write “Medical Student Ambassadors” in the subject line and attach a very short statement of interest very short statement of interest (less than 150 words) as well as an updated electronic copy of your CV.

Deadline is February 1, 2013.
Recipients will be notified by February 20, 2013.

* Travel and hotel will be the responsibility of the individual student; however, SAEM will provide the emails of other selected students to facilitate consolidating lodging expenses.

Best place to suffer a cardiac arrest?

What's the best place to suffer cardiac arrest? Seattle? Las Vegas? Who's going to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? Will someone know how to use an automatic external defibrillator (AED)?

What is the BEST place to experience a cardiac arrest???

As luck would have it, the best place would be at the ACEP Scientific Assembly. On the first day of Scientific Assembly, an exhibitor collapsed in the convention center without a pulse. At a conference with thousands of emergency physicians, several Good Samaritans immediately sprung into action. An attendee used a CPR mask while another operated an AED. They were able to revive their patient, where he is reportedly doing well at a local hospital.

Congratulations to Drs. David Pigott, Jared Shell, Jerry Edwards and everyone else involved on a job well done! 

Click here for the story.

ACEP 2012 meeting: Keeping up with Twitter

Are you at the 2012 American College of Emergency Physicians meeting in Denver this week? The who's who of EM are there now teaching, learning, and networking. Here's the moving video played at the opening session looking back at the Aurora mass casualty incident shooting.

 

For those of us covering ED shifts this week, you can "attend" virtually by reading the constant tweets from conference goers. Click on this link for a real-time update of the tweets.
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Hot off the press: Academic EM journal abstracts in Spanish

La revista Academic Emergency Medicine ha creado una nueva función en su página web en la cual todos los  resúmenes de los articulos seran traducidos al espanol. Felicidades a AEM por ser la primera revista americana en emergenciologia y unas de las primeras en medicina general por tomar en cuenta a la población de idioma español.

Muchas gracias a la gerente Sandra Arjona por darnos tan grata noticia.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acem.2012.19.issue-9/issuetoc

Welcome to the blog team: Bryan Hayes, PharmD

Bryan Hayes, PharmD, DABAT

Have you been read Bryan Hayes' mind-blowing pearls in the world of ED pharmacology and toxicology on Twitter (@PharmERToxGuy)? If not, you are missing out. I usually end up hitting "favorite" for all of his tweets to review again later. So for purely selfish reasons, I asked Bryan to see if he'd be willing to expand his 140 character gems on this blog. Much to my delight, he said yes!

On a quick web search, I think Bryan may be the first ED clinical pharmacist ever to have a meducation blog!

Here is a little blurb bio about Bryan:

• Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Maryland (UM) Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine
• Clinical Pharmacy Specialist, EM & Toxicology, UM Medical Center

After finishing my Pharm.D. degree (2005) and PGY-1 pharmacy practice residency (2006) in Worcester  MA, I moved down to Baltimore MD to complete a two-year Clinical Toxicology Fellowship (2008) at University of Maryland. I then joined the University of Maryland Medical Center's team as its first emergency medicine clinical pharmacist. I hold dual Clinical Assistant Professor appointments with the University of Maryland Schools of Medicine and Pharmacy and is board-certified in Clinical Toxicology. I hope to add a unique pharmacy/toxicology perspective on EM-related matters to this outstanding blog team.

Tips from 2012 Hot Topics EM Conference

This week, UC Davis is hosting a great conference in Maui called Hot Topics in Emergency Medicine. I've embedded a Twitter widget so that you can read some tips from the week featuring the likes of Drs. Sokolove, Kirk, Bair, Rose, and yours truly. The hashtag is #HotTopics2012.

Hot off the Press: Talking about Web 2.0 in Emergency Medicine

I am humbled to be included and quoted in a recent Annals of EM commentary about Web 2.0 in Emergency Medicine. Hey, my "street credibility" just went up just by having my name in the same article with the likes of:

• Mike Cadogan (Life in the Fast Lane)
• Joe Lex (Free Emergency Medicine Talks)
• Chris Nickson (Life in the Fast Lane)
• Cliff Reid (ResusMe)
• Scott Weingart (EMCrit)

You can read the whole article, which is free to download by the journal.

Compiling list of public Evernote notebooks

Notice the link at the top of this page?
Public Evernotes

This page is meant to start compiling a list of useful, public Evernote notebooks out there. I haven't seen anything that exists out there when I did a quick internet search. I'd love to hear what notebooks that you find handy.

Free iPad contest: Be a PEMSoft app tester

Hot off the press from the folks over at PEMSoft:

Be the first to see the beta version of the new PEMSoft App on a FREE iPad 2. You can help bring PEMSoft App to life by using the beta app in your clinical unit, whether that be the pediatric emergency department, pediatric inpatient service, or pediatric ICU.


All you need to do is give feedback on the beta version over three separate 4-week blocks. Between the 4-week blocks, the team will be upgrading and improving the app based on multiple feedback sources including you! Afterwards, you get to keep the iPad 2.

Conditions:

• There will only be 1 winner chosen.
• The App is to be used on the iPad 2 in a pediatric unit or pediatric emergency department by the physician team on a daily basis.
• We would like feedback on the App relating to how it is working, any errors found, and suggestions for improvement. 
• You will provide weekly feedback over three discrete 4-week block periods.
• After the feedback period, you keep the iPad 2. 

To enter, email a short paragraph to support@pemsoft.com on how and why you think your pediatric team can use the new PEMSoft App.

Application deadline: May 11, 2012


Disclosure: I am the Procedures section editor for PEMSoft and part of the nonprofit organization KidsCareEverywhere, which distributes free copies of PEMSoft to underserved countries.

Coming soon: TED-Ed video series

Many of you have seen TED videos, which feature many of the world's most engaging speakers on a myriad topics with the focus of spreading "Ideas Worth Sharing".

In April, the same nonprofit organization will be releasing TED-Ed, which will feature short <10 minute videos on an educational topic. I'm racking my brain to figure out a "lesson" to submit. It's my secret (ok, not so secret now) lifelong wish to be on TED.

Here's the website's description:
TED-Ed's mission is to capture and amplify the voices of great educators around the world. We do this by pairing extraordinary educators with talented animators to produce a new library of curiosity-igniting videos. You can nominate a teacher, nominate an animator or suggest a lesson here:

http://education.ted.com

Medical student opportunity: SAEM Med Student Symposium

The SAEM Medical Student Symposium is coming up on Friday, May 11 in Chicago as a part of the SAEM annual meeting. My friend Dr. Josh Wallenstein (Emory) is organizing the event and it looks to be an amazing line-up.

Here is the info:

The SAEM Medical Student Symposium is a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about planning your future in EM. Our expert faculty includes many well-known program and clerkship directors with decades of student-mentoring experience. Selected sessions include “How to excel in your EM clerkship”, “Finding the best residency program for me”, and “Top 10 mistakes EM applicants make”. Learn how to best prepare your paper application and shine during your interview from faculty who have sorted through thousands of applications and interviewed hundreds of perspective residents. At smaller roundtable discussions we’ll cover more attendee-specific topics such as “Women in EM”, “Guidance for students at international medical schools”, and “Tips and strategies for students in the pre-clinical years”.

At lunch you will be seated with program directors from around the country where you can gain more valuable advice and insight in an informal environment. At the EMRA resident panel in the afternoon you’ll get the inside scoop on EM residency and the application process from current EM residents. The program concludes with the annual residency fair at which individual residency programs are provided space for you to stop by and meet current residents and faculty as well as pick up informational material. Overall its a jam-packed, high-yield EM career and residency-application bootcamp that you don’t want to miss!

Additional practical details from Josh:

• The Symposium is on Friday, May 11th, starting at 7:45 AM and concluding at 4 PM which leads directly into the residency fair
• The cost for SAEM medical students members is $100 ($195 non-members), which includes registration to the entire SAEM meeting!
• While much of the Symposium relates to the residency application and selection process (geared towards rising M4s), 1st and 2nd year students will find it valuable as well.
• Unfortunately, the conference hotel is very expensive (particularly on a student budget) but there are an abundance of hotels in the area, many of which are more affordable.

Live-blogging: UCSF High Risk EM Hawaii conference

Today is the pre-day for our department's 2nd annual High Risk Emergency Medicine conference in Hawaii. The day's focus is on ultrasonography. Keep a lookout below as I try to live-blog some of the clinical pearls that I glean from the day (using Google Docs).

Blog incubation project: New 2 winners!

And the winners of the first ever EM Blog Incubator competition are...

Dr. Jim Campagna (Emergency physician at St Joseph's Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, NY) and Dr. Timothy Peck (Beth Israel Deaconess EM resident in Boston, MA)

Both submitted really fascinating concepts for their blogs. I'm really looking forward to reading each of their 3-part introductory series in the upcoming weeks, as they prepare to launch their own blogs.

Dr. Jim Campagna

Jim plans to focus on the all-things-technology in Emergency Medicine. This includes reviewing and aggregating lists of medical apps and hardware which are relevant to the specialty. Furthermore, he will provide up-to-date literature reviews of other technologies, such as electronic medical records and computer physician order entry, and their impact on clinical practice.

Dr. Timothy Peck

Tim isn't a newcomer to the blogging world. He has a fantastic blog "Teach, MD: Rethinking medical education" since July 2011. On his new blog, Web 2.0 Changed My Management, will feature examples of how Web 2.0 influenced the management of specific patient encounters. Also guests will be allowed to contribute mini-case presentations where they will report how a Web 2.0 activity changed how they managed a patient.

I can't wait to see what Jim and Tim come up with!

New SAEM Annual Meeting website

SAEM has created a nice Annual Meeting webpage for the first time. It's a one-stop shopping site for information and abstract submission. Check it out!

http://am2012.saem.org/

Kudos to Jason at SAEM for doing such a great job with this.

Sharing Paucis Verbis cards using Evernote app

Hot off the press!

As of yesterday, the comprehensive note-taking/organizer software Evernote has made a significant upgrade. Your mobile app version can now view shared notebooks.



Previously, you could share notecards or files with others using the "Shared Notebook" option. A major limitation was that you could only view files in these folders from the web application of Evernote  -- not your desktop or your mobile device.




What does that mean now?

On your mobile device, such as your iPad or iPhone, you can now automatically get my Paucis Verbis  (PV) cards every week. You don't have to manually download them. In fact, you might get an early preview of a PV card, since I usually make then 1-2 days prior to posting them on the blog. I keep them all in a Shared Notebook on Evernote.

How to link to my PV Shared Notebook:

1. Go to the public link:

http://www.evernote.com/pub/michelleclin/paucisverbis



2. In the upper right corner, click on the "Link to my Account" icon. This should create a PV folder in your list of "Linked Notebooks". This will require you to sign-in to Evernote, if you have not already.



3. After you update your Evernote app, your mobile device will now list "Shared notebook" as a new folder in your list of Notebooks (see image above). All of my PV cards should appear in this folder now.



Let me know if this doesn't work for you.

Find the closest ER = findER app

One of the cool things about having a blog is now people come to me with news. That's how I learned about Mass General's Emergency Medicine Network (EMNet) and their new mobile app called "findER". It makes clever use of the mobile phone's GPS capability and internet accessibility.

Here's the info that they provided:

The app launched for the iPhone in June 2010. Due to popular demand, we have recently introduced the app on Blackberry and Android platforms.

Through our studies, we have developed the most comprehensive, accurate emergency room (ER) database in the country. This free app uses that database of nearly 5,000 U.S. ERs to benefit individuals in an emergency situation. With one click, findER will get its users to the closest ER in the event of a health emergency. We think that the app is a must-have addition to anyone’s phone, especially when traveling with young ones and family members with chronic health problems during the upcoming summer months.

SAEM National Meeting a success!

The national SAEM meeting in Boston just concluded and was a success. As part of the SAEM Social Media Committee, I was encouraged to see how many people were tweeting events from the meeting. Check out the tweets with the #SAEM11 hashtag.

To view beyond the most recent 100 tweets, you can view here.

SAEM has a new website

The Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) has totally revamped its website into a really spiffy and professional looking site. I belong to the SAEM Web Editorial Board Committee and got to work with some really inspiring physicians and administrative staff who were able to launch this year-long project. Congrats team!