Time Magazine for Kids

Last month I visited a hi-tech middle school class to teach middle schoolers some anatomy.  We dissected sheep hearts, just like many of you have done in your own studies.  What made this experience different was that we used video cameras, iPads, PCs, and smartboards to run the lesson.  I had a lot of fun, but I was also intrigued by the agility with which the technology made it easy to differentiate or tier lesson plans.  This concept that students' individual needs may each be met at the same time and in the same space has been championed mostly by elementary and secondary school educators.  But it seems to me that it is a perfect educational philosophy to embrace for medical education - especially resident education.
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Every Wednesday, I sit in a large room with my peers.  There are all levels of EM residents present.  The third years know more than the second years who know more than I do.  We all listen to the same lectures.  But I feel over my head at times, and I'm sure the third years feel board some of the times.  Tiering lesson plans is a concept that enables all levels of learners to get the most they they can get out of a lesson while sharing the same space and time.
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Technology has made it possible to easily differentiate lesson plans.  Perhaps medical education can learn from early education, and get on board with the logic behind the process.
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Check it out: Time-for-Kids magazine visited the classroom on the day that I was teaching and produced an on-line video-article about a public middle-school classroom that blows any residency classroom away:  http://www.timeforkids.com/photos-video/video/high-tech-classroom-27391.  If they can do it, why can't we?

- Teach, MD

It's coming . . .

http://iclickem.com/

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.

Prezi

The worst lectures are those with PowerPoint slides cluttered with bullet points and words.  Why even get in front of a crowd and speak if everything you are going to say is already on the slides?  Less clutter means more attention to the the speaker.  The best lectures are those that tell a story.

Try Prezi when creating your next presentation.  I played with it last night after a shift, and was able to easily turn earlier blog posts (Venn and 3 Tenets) into a cool presentation.  If I want to teach someone about my ideas, I can easily go on to my Prezi account and use this as my storyboard to explain myself.  

3 Tenets of Medical Education Venn - TeachMD on Prezi

Join Presi and find it here: http://prezi.com/wd5vyzboa360/3-tenets-of-medical-education-venn-teachmd/

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