SOPA and WikEM

The SOPA protest worked.  Without Wikipedia, it turns out, the world isn't as efficient or fun.  You don't know what you have, until you no longer have it.
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Inspired by the protest, I wrote my local congressman (which Google and Wikipedia made extremely easy to do).  Then I joined WikEM. 
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I created content for this page: http://www.wikem.org/wiki/Ultrasound:_Aorta.  As those of you who read my blog know, I recently started compiling a free ultrasound course.  I plan on updating or creating WikEM pages while I continue to create free ultrasound lessons.
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A friend of mine is a banker.  We had drinks the other night and he told me about a co-worker/banker who had some unique ideas on information.  This banker has started to pull his money out of stocks, and started to buy up farm land.  Why?  Because he believes that although information is at a high premium now, it will soon become so ubiquitous and universally accessible, that monetary value will shift toward things that we actually need to survive - like food and water.  This may be an extreme view on the nature of Web 2.0 and the movement for free access to information, but it speaks to the movement's real and powerful presence.
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I don't know what exactly will happen, but I do know that free information is the future.  And if you're not on board, you'll be left behind.  Please join in making information free.

Free EM Ultrasound Lessons 1 - 5 Now Posted

The purpose of this free "course" is for it to continually improved.  I have contributed absolutely no content, but simply arranged free resources in a logical manner.  It takes 10 minutes to set up the course for yourself.  And each lesson ranges from 1 to 2 hours.
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Lesson 1 through 4 are cardiac, aorta, ruq, and renal/ureter/bladder.  Lesson 5 is a review of what you've learned.  The next lesson will be FAST, which you will be able to perform well now that you have knowledge of all 4 views.
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I can't possibly know what all the free resources out there are.  So please comment and contribute and help others teach themselves how to be better at ultrasound.  I'm particularly interested in ultrasound videos that clinically correlate so that we can improve our practice and knowledge base of EM, not just ultrasound.
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I look forward to this project evolving and thank you in advance for all of your help.  A special thanks to Tarina Kang, ultrasound director at Beth Israel - Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency for supporting this vision.

Find the course here: http://teachmd.blogspot.com/p/free-ed-ultrasound.html
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Teach, MD

Free Emergency Medicine Ultrasound "Course"

EM ultrasound is difficult to learn by using books with text and static images.  I’m just finishing a quick week of introductory ultrasound in which the interns walk around the department with a senior resident or attending and free-scan patients.  You can’t learn ultrasound without doing it.  But, going home and reviewing the images you saw and reading about the specifics in static books seems backwards to me.  So, I decided to learn mostly by videos/images and short directed articles.

I've also been thinking a lot about crowdsourcing lately.  As a resident, I don't have time for much else besides medicine and my loved ones.  So how does a busy person take big ideas and make them into reality?  By soliciting the help of a crowd of experts.  

At BIDMC/HAEMR, a fellow resident and I set up an internal site on our resident-wiki page where residents post info to help one another out in our EM learning.  I started collecting the links of all the ultrasound videos I watched this week in order to post them onto this site.  But, I realized that the crowd of ultrasound learners could be much larger than just the 36 other residents at my program.

So I've begun to design a free ultrasound course.  I've posted the first 3 lessons (cardiac, aorta, and GB/RUQ), and as I continue to learn ultrasound, I will post more lessons.  

I am in no way an expert on ultrasound, so I'll need your help to crowdsource this project.  Please comment to this post, and contribute your own videos/sites/podcasts/apps/etc, and I’ll update the “course” appropriately.

Note: I have no affiliation with any of the resources that I posted.  If I ever do, I'll be sure to disclose it.  If you post a resource that you are affiliated with, please let us know that as well.

- Teach, MD