Abstract
BackgroundFree open access to medical education (FOAM, #FOAM) is the free availability of educational materials on various medicine topics. We hope to evaluate the use of social media and FOAM by emergency medical services (EMS) providers.MethodsWe designed an online survey distributed to EMS providers with questions about demographics and social media/FOAM use by providers. The survey was sent to the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) EMS Listserv of medical directors and was asked to be distributed to their respective agencies. The survey was designed to inquire about the providers’ knowledge of FOAM and social media and their use of the above for EMS education.ResultsThere were 169 respondents out of a total of 523 providers yielding a response rate of 32.3%. Fifty-three percent of respondents are paramedics, 37% are EMT-Basic trained, and the remainder (16%) were “other.”The minority (20%) of respondents had heard of FOAM. However, 54% of respondents had heard of “free medical education online” regarding pertinent topics. Of the total respondents who used social media for education, 31% used Facebook and 23% used blogs and podcasts as resources for online education.Only 4% of respondents stated they produced FOAM content. Seventy-six percent of respondents said they were “interested” or “very interested” in using FOAM for medical education. If FOAM provided continuing medical education (CME), 83% of respondents would be interested in using it.ConclusionSocial media is not used frequently by EMS providers for the purposes of FOAM. There is interest within EMS providers to use FOAM for education, even if CME was not provided. FOAM can provide a novel area of education for EMS.
Highlights
Free open access to medical education (FOAM, #FOAM) is the free availability of educational materials on various medicine topics
Fifty-three percent of the respondents are paramedics, 37% are Emergency medical technician (EMT)-Basic trained, and the remainder (16%) are distributed between the remaining options
There are FOAM resources that are dedicated to topics relevant to the practice of emergency medical services (EMS), which can be a huge area for continuing education and improvement
Summary
Free open access to medical education (FOAM, #FOAM) is the free availability of educational materials on various medicine topics. It is composed of various resources, including blog posts, podcasts, articles, short essays, reviews, videos, and other forms of educational material. Residents and faculty are using FOAM on a regular basis, and research has found that the use of social media increases their review of primary literature [2]. The Council of Emergency Medicine Residency Directors (CORD) has released a position statement and guidelines on the use of social media and FOAM for residency education due to its importance [3]
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Topics from this Paper
Emergency Medical Services
Emergency Medical Services Providers
American College Of Emergency Physicians
Continuing Medical Education
Social Media For Education
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