Academic Life In Emergency Medicine Research Articles

SAEM systematic online academic resource (SOAR) review: Gastrointestinal illnesses.

Free open access medical education (FOAM) has become an essential tool for emergency medicine (EM) education and can be valuable to clinicians as a point-of-care resource. The development of the revised Medical Education Translational Resources Impact and Quality (rMETRIQ) tool provides a standardized means of quality assessment. Previous entries of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine systematic online academic resource (SOAR) series have focused on renal, endocrine, and sickle cell disorders. In this iteration, we strive to identify, curate, and describe FOAM topics specific to acute gastrointestinal (GI) illnesses. We searched 389 keywords across 11 GI topics that were modified from the 2019 Model of the Clinical Practice of EM (EM Model) using the search engine Google FOAM and within the top 50 websites listed on Academic Life in Emergency Medicine's Social Media Index. The sites underwent preliminary screening to eliminate resources that were not relevant to EM or GI illnesses. Identified resources were evaluated with the rMETRIQ tool by five board-certified EM physicians who received rMETRIQ tool rater training. After duplicates of the initial 39,505 resources were eliminated, 8059 remained. Primary screening resulted in a final 1202 resources. The most common categories were large bowel (18%), small bowel (13%), stomach (11%), esophagus (11%), biliary (11%), and liver (10%). Many resources covered multiple topics and subtopics. The final mean intraclass correlation coefficient among the five physicians was 0.95 (95% CI 0.92-0.98) for rMETRIQ scoring. We identified 256 sites considered "high quality" with a rMETRIQ score of 16 or higher as designated in prior reviews. This iteration of the SOAR review resulted in the highest number of high-quality resources compared to other SOAR reviews, with 21% of resources thus far scoring ≥ 16. A final list of high-quality resources can guide trainees, educator recommendations, and FOAM authors.

Emergency Medicine Procedures: A Review of Approved Instructional Resources from the World of Free Open Access Medical Education.

The Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Approved Instructional Resources (AIR) Series was created in 2014 to address the Free Open Access Medical Education (FOAM) movement's decentralized nature and lack of inherent peer review. The AIR series provides a topic-based, curated list of online educational content vetted by academic emergency medicine (EM) faculty that meets individualized interactive instruction criteria for EM trainees. Relevant FOAM resources were identified from the top 50 FOAM websites using the Social Media Index and then scored by EM faculty using a validated instrument to identify the highest quality posts related to a topic. This article reviews FOAM resources pertaining to EM procedures that were labeled as an "Approved Instructional Resource" or "Honorable Mention" using the AIR series methodology.

ALiEM Connect: Large-Scale, Interactive, Virtual Residency Programming in Response to COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic restricted in-person gatherings, including residency conferences. The pressure to quickly reorganize educational conferences and convert content to a remote format overwhelmed many programs. This article describes the pilot event of a large-scale, interactive, virtual educational conference modeled, designed, and implemented by Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM), called ALiEM Connect. The pilot ALiEM Connect event was conceptualized and implemented within a 2-week period in March 2020. The pilot was livestreamed via a combination of Zoom and YouTube and was archived by YouTube. Slack was used as a backchannel to allow interaction with other participants and engagement with the speakers (via moderators who posed questions from the backchannel to the speakers live during the videoconference). The RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance) framework was used for program evaluation, showing that 64 U.S. Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited emergency medicine residency programs participated in the pilot event, with 1,178 unique users during the event (reach). For effectiveness, 93% (139/149) of trainees reported the pilot as enjoyable and 85% (126/149) reported it was equivalent to or better than their usual academic proceedings. Adoption for ALiEM Connect was fairly good with 64/237 (27%) of invited residency programs registering and participating in the pilot event. Implementation was demonstrated by nearly half of the livestream viewers (47%, 553/1,178) interacting in the backchannel discussion, sending a total of 4,128 messages in the first 4 hours. The final component of the RE-AIM framework, maintenance, will take more time to evaluate. Further study is required to measure the educational impact of events like the ALiEM Connect pilot. The ALiEM Connect model could potentially be used to replace educational conferences that have been canceled or to implement and/or augment a large-scale, shared curriculum among residency programs in the future.

Professional development during a pandemic: a live virtual conference for emergency medicine chief residents.

Limited professional development training exists for chief residents. The available training uses in-person lectures and workshops at annual national conferences. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented most in-person gatherings in 2020, including pivotal onboarding and training events for new chief residents. However, for the last five years, Academic Life in Emergency Medicine’s Chief Resident Incubator conducted year-long remote training programs, creating virtual communities of practice for chief residents in emergency medicine (EM). As prior leaders and alumni from the Incubator, we sought to respond to the limitations presented by the pandemic and create an onboarding event to provide foundational knowledge for incoming chief residents. We developed a half-day virtual conference, whereupon 219 EM chief residents enrolled. An effective professional development experience is feasible and scalable using online videoconferencing technologies, especially if constructed with content expertise, psychological safety, and production design in mind.

Faculty development using a virtual community of practice: Three-year outcomes of the Academic Life in Emergency Medicine Faculty Incubator program.

The Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Faculty Incubator program is a longitudinal, 1-year, virtual faculty development program for early- and mid-career faculty members that crosses specialties and institutions. This study sought to evaluate the outcomes among 3years of participants. This cross-sectional survey study evaluated postcourse and 1-year outcomes from three graduated classes of the ALiEM Faculty Incubator program. The program evaluation survey was designed to collect outcomes across multiple Kirkpatrick levels using pre/post surveys and tracking of abstracts, publications, speaking opportunities, new leadership positions, and new curricula. Over 3years, 89 clinician educators participated in the program. Of those, 59 (66%) completed the initial survey and 33 (37%) completed the 1-year survey. Participants reported a significant increase in knowledge (4.1/9.0 vs. 7.0/9.0). The number of abstracts, publications, and invited presentations significantly increased after course completion and continued postcourse. A total of 37 of 59 (62.7%) developed a new curriculum during the course and 19 of 33 (57.6%) developed another new curriculum after the course. A total of 29 of 59 (49.2%) began a new leadership position upon course completion with 15 of 33 (45.5%) beginning another new leadership position 1year later. The ALiEM Faculty Incubator program demonstrated an increase in perceived knowledge and documented academic productivity among early- and mid-career medical educators.

Physically distant, educationally connected: Interactive conferencing in the era of COVID-19.

During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, physical distancing restrictions led to the cancellation of live, large group events worldwide. These included weekly educational conferences required of emergency medicine (EM) residency programmes in the USA. Specifically, the Residency Review Committee in EM under the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has mandated that there be at least 4 hours per week of synchronous conference didactics.1 Increased clinical and administrative demands during the COVID-19 pandemic have challenged programmes to transition traditional curricula to online platforms. In an effort to mirror a traditional in-person conference experience, we at Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) launched ALiEM Connect (ALiEM, San Francisco, CA, USA), incorporating a livestream video of presentations with concurrent backchannel (informal, non-public, secondary conversation) discussions. Although several teleconferencing applications exist, the distribution of an interactive conference to 1080 learners on 64 United States residency programmes necessitated a novel, scalable approach, which no existing platform offered with standard plans. Six nationally known speakers taught during the 2-hour event, in which 20 minutes were allotted to each speaker. We utilised Zoom™ (Zoom Video Communications Inc., San Jose, CA, USA) to host speakers in view of its capability to stream on to YouTube Live (YouTube, San Bruno, CA, USA). Participants watched the stream via YouTube, and synchronous backchannel discussion with learners, educators and speakers was facilitated through a closed Slack (Slack Technologies, San Francisco, CA, USA) messaging platform restricted to registered residency programmes. Learners engaged in large group channels dedicated to each speaker and in their own small group, programme-specific channels. This structure provided an organised approach to engaging in multiple simultaneous discussions. Moderators relayed questions from learners on Slack to speakers on Zoom during live question-and-answer segments. The adoption of any new digital platform is often challenging for both first-time and seasoned users. Preliminary survey data suggest that most residents were unfamiliar with Slack and may have felt reserved about navigating the platform during discussion; we note that it is challenging in this context to establish the psychological safety some residents need to empower them to comment and pose questions. From the ALiEM Connect team’s perspective, the live format required in-the-moment adaptability to unanticipated obstacles, such as unpredictable initial linkages between Zoom and YouTube, the crashing of the website caused by the initial surge of traffic, and the inability of speakers to screenshare presentation slides. Nonetheless, our event highlighted a successful, scalable and engaged way to host a live online conference. It allowed for engagement within and across multiple programmes spanning the country and real-time access to national experts, effectively creating a virtual community of practice in a ‘mega-grand rounds’ format. An unexpected benefit of the Slack backchannel was that trainees seemed especially engaged in their programme’s small group channel, on which they discussed the lecture topic, told stories of their hospital experiences, shared literature and even added humour to the conversation, thereby mimicking behaviours common to in-person conferences. Overall, resident feedback was overwhelmingly positive. In comparison with prior in-person conference experiences, 84% of residents felt that ALiEM Connect was the same or better in quality and 93% enjoyed the event overall. Thus, although learners must remain physically distant during the COVID-19 pandemic, we offer a model for massive, online, interactive conferencing that allows for social connection and academic engagement amongst residents.

Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Blog and Podcast Watch: Infectious Diseases.

The Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Approved Instructional Resources (AIR) Series and Approved Instructional Resources - Professional (AIR-Pro) Series were created in 2014 and 2015, respectively, in response to the growing need to curate online educational content as well as create a nationally available curriculum that meets individualized interactive instruction criteria for emergency medicine (EM) trainees. These two online series identify high-quality educational blog and podcast content using an expert-based approach.The AIR series is a continuously building curriculum originally based on the Council of Emergency Medicine Directors (CORD) testing schedule. In September 2019, 61 blog posts and podcasts published within the previous 12 months and relevant to infectious diseases were evaluated by eight attending physicians using the ALiEM AIR scoring instrument. In this review, we summarize the accredited posts on infectious diseases meeting our a priori quality criteria per evaluation by the reviewers.

Curated Collections for Educators: Five Key Papers on Clinical Teaching.

The ability to teach in the clinical setting is of paramount importance. Clinical teaching is at the heart of medical education, irrespective of the learner’s level of training. Learners desire and need effective, competent, and thoughtful clinical teaching from their instructors. However, many clinician-educators lack formal training on this important skill and thus may provide a variable experience to their learners. Although formal training of clinician-educators is standard and required in many other countries, the United States has yet to follow suit, leaving many faculty members to fend for themselves to learn these important skills. In September 2018, the Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) 2018-2019 Faculty Incubator program discussed the topic of clinical teaching techniques. We gathered the titles of papers that were cited, shared, and recommended within our online discussion forum and compiled the articles pertaining to the topic of clinical teaching techniques. To augment the list, the authors did a formal literature search using the search terms “teaching techniques", "clinical teaching", "medical education", "medical students", and "residents” on Google Scholar and PubMed. Finally, we posted a call for important papers on the topic of clinical teaching techniques on Twitter.Through this process, we identified 48 core articles on the topic of clinical teaching. We conducted a modified Delphi methodology to identify the key papers on the topic. In this paper, we present the five highest-rated articles based on the relevance to junior faculty and faculty developers. This article will review and summarize the articles we found to be the most impactful to improve one’s clinical teaching skills.

Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Blog and Podcast Watch: Gastrointestinal Emergencies.

The Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Approved Instructional Resources (AIR) Series and Approved Instructional Resources - Professional (AIR-Pro) Series were created in 2014 and 2015, respectively, in response to the growing need to curate online educational content as well as create a nationally available curriculum that meets individualized interactive instruction criteria for emergency medicine (EM) trainees. These two online series identify high-quality educational blog and podcast content using an expert-based approach. We summarize the accredited posts on gastrointestinal emergencies that met our a priori determined quality criteria per evaluation by eight experienced faculty educators in EM.

Curated Collection for Educators: Five Key Papers About Second Victim Syndrome.

Second victim syndrome (SVS) is defined as the psychological or emotional suffering of healthcare workers as a result of a patient adverse, or near miss, event. Initially thought to be related to medical error, we now recognize that SVS can result from a much wider range of circumstances including adverse pediatric patient events, unanticipated deaths, or patients well known to the provider. Residents are particularly susceptible to SVS yet relatively little is written about this topic targeted at their educators. Since educators are positioned to help recognize and guide learners through the experience, this paper targets that reader audience. In this article, we identify and summarize five key papers relevant to educators interested in learning more about SVS as it relates to learners.We identified an extensive list of papers relevant to SVS via online discussions within the Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Faculty Incubator. The Faculty Incubator is a digital community of practice providing professional development for educators. This list was augmented by an open call on Twitter seen by over 2000 people and yielding a list of 31 papers. We then conducted a three-round modified Delphi process within the authorship group, which included both junior and senior clinician educators, to identify the most impactful papers for educators interested in SVS.The three-round modified Delphi process ranked all papers submitted for review and used iterative rounds to select the five highest-rated papers for inclusion in this article. The group then summarized each of the five papers with specific consideration for junior faculty educators and faculty developers with an interest in SVS in learners.The five papers featured in this article serve as a key reading list for educators across specialties interested in SVS and our commentary provides context for medical educators using the articles.

Curated Collections for Educators: Eight Key Papers about Feedback in Medical Education.

Feedback is an essential part of learning, growth, and academic success. Junior faculty members are often unfamiliar with the grounding literature that defines feedback. Many times they receive little education on providing and receiving feedback, resulting in unhelpful “feedback” for both learners and program leadership alike. This article aims to summarize eight key papers on feedback, to outline relevant information for emerging clinician educators, and identify ways to use these resources for the faculty development. In order to generate a list of key papers that describes the importance and significance of feedback, the authors conducted a consensus-building process to identify the top papers. In August and September, 2018, the 2018-2019 Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Faculty Incubator program discussed the topic of feedback in medical education. A number of papers on the topic was highlighted. This list of papers was further augmented using the suggestions and expertise of guest experts who are leaders in the field of medical education and feedback. The authors also used social media to conduct an open call on Twitter for important papers regarding feedback (utilizing #meded, #Feedback hashtags). Via this process, a list of 88 key papers was identified on the topic of feedback in medical education. After compiling these papers, the authorship group engaged in a modified Delphi approach to build consensus on the top eight papers on feedback. These papers were deemed essential by the authors and have been summarized with respect to their relevance to junior faculty members and to faculty developers.In this manuscript, we present eight key papers addressing feedback in medical education with discussions and applications for junior faculty members and faculty developers. This list of articles that can serve to help junior clinician educators grow in their ability to give effective feedback and also serve as resources upon which senior faculty can design the faculty development sessions.

Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Blog and Podcast Watch: Renal and Genitourinary Emergencies.

The Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Approved Instructional Resources (AIR) series and Approved Instruction Resources Professional (AIR-Pro) series were created in 2014 and 2015, respectively, to address the need for the curation of online educational content as well as a nationally available curriculum that meets individualized interactive instruction criteria. These two programs identify high-quality educational blog and podcast content using an expert-based approach.The AIR series is a continuously building curriculum originally based on the Council of Emergency Medicine Directors (CORD) testing schedule. Using the ALiEM AIR scoring instrument, 49 blog posts and podcasts relevant to renal and genitourinary emergencies published within the previous 12 months were evaluated by eight attending physicians.We summarize the 13 posts that met our a priori determined quality criteria per evaluation by the reviewers.The ALiEM Blog and Podcast Watch series identifies high-quality educational blogs and podcasts for emergency medicine clinicians through its expert panel, using a validated scoring instrument. While this article focuses on renal and genitourinary emergencies, additional AIR modules address other topics in emergency medicine. The AIR and AIR-Pro series provide post-publication accreditation and curation of recent online content to identify and recommend high-quality educational social media content for the EM clinician.

Academic Life in Emergency Medicine Blog and Podcast Watch: Toxicologic Emergencies.

The Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Approved Instructional Resources (AIR) Series was created in 2014 to address a lack of both curation of online educational content and a nationally available curriculum that meets individualized interactive instruction. Using an expert-based, crowdsourced approach, the AIR series identifies trustworthy, high-quality, educational blog and podcast content.Here, we summarize the content rated as high quality per our a priori criteria as evaluated by eight attending physicians.

Academic Life in Emergency Medicine Blog and Podcast Watch: Respiratory Emergencies.

The Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Approved Instructional Resources (AIR) Series and Approved Instruction Resources Professional (AIR-Pro) Series were created in 2014 and 2015, respectively, to address the need for curation of online educational content as well as a nationally available curriculum that meets individualized interactive instruction criteria. These two programs identify high-quality educational blog and podcast content using an expert-based approach.We summarize the accredited posts on respiratory emergencies that met our a priori determined quality criteria per evaluation by eight experienced faculty educators in emergency medicine.

Comparative Analysis of Junior and Senior Clinician Educator Evaluation of Relevant Articles Within Medical Education.

IntroductionIt may be difficult for junior clinician educators (JCEs) to get a grasp of pertinent literature and determine which are most relevant to their learning, due to limited experience and lack of formalized system to rank all available resources with respect to their value for JCEs. Our study aimed to identify whether senior clinician educators (SCEs) and JCEs differ in their selection of what they perceive as key medical education articles.MethodsAs a part of the Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Faculty Incubator program, we developed a series of primer articles for JCEs by identifying and discussing key articles within specific medical education arenas, which were designed to enhance the reader's educational growth. Each set of articles within the primer series were selected based on data collected from JCEs and SCEs, who ranked the specific articles with respect to their perceived relevancy to the JCEs. ANOVA analysis was performed for each of the series to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference between JCE and SCE rating of articles.ResultsTwo-hundred-and-sixteen total articles were evaluated within the nine primer topics. No statistically significant difference was found between the rankings of papers by JCEs and SCEs (effect size: 0.06; 95% CI: -0.27 to 0.40). However, a subgroup analysis of the data found that three of the nine primers showed statistically significant divergence based on seniority (p < 0.05).ConclusionsBased on the data, the involvement of JCEs in the consensus-building process was important in identifying divergence in views between JCEs and SCEs in one-third of cases. Our findings suggest that it is important to involve JCEs in selecting articles that are worthwhile for their learning, since SCEs may not fully understand their needs.

P016: Junior and senior clinician educators rank key medical education articles differently depending on topic

Introduction: Medical education includes a diverse range of topics and disciplines. For junior clinician educators, it may be difficult to get a grasp of pertinent literature. Our study aims to retrospectively identify whether senior clinician educators (SCEs) and junior clinician educators (JCEs) differ in their selection of what they perceive as key medical education articles. Methods: As a part of the Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Faculty Incubator program, we developed a series of primer articles for JCEs over the preceding year, designed to enhance their educational growth by identifying and discussing key articles within specific medical education arenas. Each set of articles within the primer series were selected based on data collected from JCEs and SCEs, who ranked the specific articles with respect to their perceived relevancy to the JCEs. ANOVA analysis was performed for each of the nine primer series to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference between senior and junior CEs ratings of articles. Results: 216 total articles were evaluated within the nine different primer topics. Through a multilevel regression analysis of the data, no statistically significant difference was found between the rankings of papers by SCEs and JCEs (95%CI: -0.27, 0.40). However, a subgroup analysis of the data found that 3 of the 9 primers showed statistically significant divergence based on seniority (p&lt;0.05). Conclusion: Based on this data, involvement of JCEs in the consensus-building process was important in identifying divergence in views between JCEs and SCEs in one-third of cases. To our knowledge, no other group have compared whether junior and senior clinical educators may have divergent opinions about the relevance of medical education literature. Our findings suggest that it may be important to involve JCEs in selecting articles that are worthwhile for their learning, since SCEs may not fully understand their needs.

P165: A Non-hierarchical mentorship model for professional development

Introduction: Mentorship is an essential component of professional development and benefits include increased career satisfaction, scholarship, and efficiency of academic promotion. The Mastermind group, a collaborative, network-based model for mentorship has gained popularity in the business world. It comprises of a group of colleagues that provide mentorship and career advice for each other through regularly scheduled meetings. The group benefits from the combined intelligence and accumulated experience of the participants, who may be at different career stages. Methods: Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM; www.aliem.com), a digital health professions education organization, conducted two Mastermind groups for 14 team members in 2017. The groups included all levels of academic rank from full professor to instructors, and represented 14 different medical schools in North America. Each Mastermind group completed a self-assessment summarizing their professional strengths and weaknesses, two homework assignments, and two 90-minute videoconference meetings, using a structured, moderator-facilitated format. Meetings were conducted on Google Hangouts on Air© (Google Inc.). In the initial group meeting, participants discussed their self-assessments, current projects, and career challenges. The second meeting allowed discussion of suggested professional development resources for each participant, actionable next steps, and an accountability timeline for each participant. The free, cloud-based platforms and voluntary basis for the Mastermind groups resulted in a zero-cost innovation. Results: In a post-intervention survey, the 14 participants rated the experience as 9.4/10 (response rate 100%) using a Likert scale. In a quasi-experimental analysis participants cited the need for career advice or assistance with a project as their reason for participating. Participants received specific resource recommendations during the sessions, including books, training courses, or conferences. Contacts outside the group for additional mentorship were made possible given the breadth of networks among the participants. All participants had at least one identifiable next step with accountability to the group. Overall, the participants described a synergy of energy, commitment to one anothers longitudinal success, and benefit from the diverse range of talent and expertise in the group. Many of the members discussed plans to replicate this mentorship model at their own institutions. Conclusion: Our experiences suggest that the Mastermind conceptual framework is an easily replicated, feasible, zero-cost, and effective model for professional development. Though the model was originally proposed as a method for in-person discussions, we report a more modern, online experience for professional development in our diverse, globally-distributed team.

P166: The chief resident incubator - a virtual community of practice

Introduction: The Emergency Medicine Chief Resident Incubator is a year-long curriculum for chief residents that aims to provide participants with a virtual community of practice, formal administrative training, mentorship, and opportunities for scholarship. Methods: The Chief Resident Incubator was designed by Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM; www.aliem.com) a digital health professions education organization in 2015, following a needs assessment in emergency medicine. A 12-month curriculum was created using constructivist social learning theory, with specific learning objectives that reflected 11 key administrative or professional development domains deemed important to chief residents. The topics covered included interviewing skills, contract negotiations, leadership, coaching, branding, conflict resolution, and ended with a focus on wellness and career longevity. A Core Leadership Team and Virtual Mentors were recruited to lead each annual iteration of the curriculum. The Incubator was implemented as a virtual community of practice using Slack©, a messaging and digital communication platform. Ancillary technology such as Google Hangout on Air© and Mailchimp© were used to facilitate learner engagement with the curriculum. Three in person networking events were hosted at three large emergency medicine and education conferences with special medical education guests. Outcomes include chief resident participation rates, Slack© activity, Google Hangout© web analytics, newsletter email engagement, and scholarship. We also incorporated a hidden curriculum throughout the year with multiple online publications, competitions for guest grand round presentations, and incorporation of digital technologies in medical education. Results: A total of 584 chief residents have participated over the first 3 years of the Chief Resident Incubator; this includes chief residents from over 212 residency programs across North America. Over 27,000 messages have been shared on Slack© (median 214 per week). A total of 32 Google Hangouts© have occurred over the course of the inaugural Incubator including faculty mentorship from Dr. Rob Rogers, Dr. Dara Kass and Dr. Amal Mattu. A monthly newsletter was distributed to the participants with an opening rate of 59%. Scholarship included 26 published academic blog posts, 2 open access In-Training exam prepbooks, a senior level online curriculum with 9 published modules and 3 book club reviews. Conclusion: The Chief Resident Incubator is a virtual community of practice that provides longitudinal training and mentorship for chief residents. This Incubator framework may be used to design similar professional development curricula across various health professions using an online digital platform.

Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Blog and Podcast Watch: Infectious Disease Emergencies.

To address the needs for curation of online educational content as well as the development of a nationally available curriculum that meets individualized interactive instruction, the Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Approved Instructional Resources (AIR) Series and AIR-Pro Series were created in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Using an expert-based, crowd-sourced approach, these two programs identify trustworthy, high-quality, educational blog, and podcast content.Here, we summarize the accredited posts that met our a priori determined quality criteria and evaluated by eight attending physicians.

Executive Summary from the 2017 Emergency Medicine Resident Wellness Consensus Summit.

IntroductionPhysician wellness has recently become a popular topic of conversation and publication within the house of medicine and specifically within emergency medicine (EM). Through a joint collaboration involving Academic Life in Emergency Medicine’s (ALiEM) Wellness Think Tank, Essentials of Emergency Medicine (EEM), and the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association (EMRA), a one-day Resident Wellness Consensus Summit (RWCS) was organized.MethodsThe RWCS was held on May 15, 2017, as a pre-day event prior to the 2017 EEM conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Seven months before the RWCS event, pre-work began in the ALiEM Wellness Think Tank, which was launched in October 2016. The Wellness Think Tank is a virtual community of practice involving EM residents from the U.S. and Canada, hosted on the Slack digital-messaging platform. A working group was formed for each of the four predetermined themes: wellness curriculum development; educator toolkit resources for specific wellness topics; programmatic innovations; and wellness-targeted technologies.ResultsPre-work for RWCS included 142 residents from 100 different training programs in the Wellness Think Tank. Participants in the actual RWCS event included 44 EM residents, five EM attendings who participated as facilitators, and three EM attendings who acted as participants. The four working groups ultimately reached a consensus on their specific objectives to improve resident wellness on both the individual and program level.ConclusionThe Resident Wellness Consensus Summit was a unique and novel consensus meeting, involving residents as the primary stakeholders. The summit demonstrated that it is possible to galvanize a large group of stakeholders in a relatively short time by creating robust trust, communication, and online learning networks to create resources that support resident wellness.