Free Open Access Medical Research Articles

Medical Education Blog and Podcast Utilization During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

IntroductionThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic disrupted traditional in-person learning models. Free Open Access Medical (FOAM) education resources naturally filled this void, so we evaluated how medical blog and podcast utilization changed during the early months of the pandemic.MethodsAcademic medical podcast and blog producers were surveyed on blog and podcast utilization immediately before (January-March 2020) and after (April-May 2020) the COVID-19 pandemic declaration and subsequent lockdown. Utilization is quantified in terms of blog post pageviews and podcast downloads. Linear regression was used to estimate the effect of publication during the COVID-19 period on 30-day downloads or pageviews. A linear mixed model was developed to confirm this relationship after adjustment for independent predictors of higher 30-day downloads or pageviews, using the podcast or blog as a random intercept.ResultsCompared to the pre-pandemic period, downloads and pageviews per unique blog and podcast publication significantly increased for blogs (median 30-day pageviews 802 to 1860, p<0.0001) but not for podcasts (median 30-day downloads 2726 to 1781, p=0.27). Publications that contained COVID-19 content were strongly associated with higher monthly utilization (β=7.21, 95% CI 6.29-8.14 p<0.001), and even non-COVID-19 material had higher utilization in the early pandemic (median 30-day downloads/pageviews 868 to 1380, p<0.0001).DiscussionThe increased blog pageviews during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the important role of blogs in rapid knowledge translation. Podcasts did not experience a similar increase in utilization.

Opinion article: Blogs and podcasts in medical education

Within the last years new online resources such as blogs and podcasts are making their way into medical education. With the introduction of the internet in the last decades, the field of medical education and training has also changed. Consumption of information independent of time and location through blogs and podcast is now a part of everyday life. The FOAM (“Free Open Access Medical Education”) community in particular is playing a pioneering role here. We discuss the roles of blogs and podcasts in medical education and possible applications such as the “flipped classroom” concept. We explain the many advantages, like their function as a filter against information overload or their role in the so called “knowledge translation gap” but we also highlight points such as a cult of personality that should be viewed critically. Last but not least, we describe the reasons why we run a blog ourselves and the challenges we face.

Social Media and Free Open Access Medical (FOAM) Education

Narrative review of free open access medical education (FOAM) and its effects on the medical community including, but not limited to, medical societies, residency curricula, patient care guidelines, and medical journals. This review will inform the reader of the positive effects and potential controversies of FOAM. Online medical education has revolutionized the way medical personnel access information through several platforms including blogs, podcasts, social networking, and media sharing sites. These have received mixed reviews in terms of efficiency, reliability, professionalism, ethics, and confidentiality. Since its creation, FOAM has had a dramatic impact on the medical community. Despite the current mixed reviews, its popularity continues to rise among medical professionals. This popularity will enrich future literature reviews and can help guide the medical community in understanding, modifying, and potentially developing policies that benefit clinicians and patients alike.

A Review of Natural Language Processing in Medical Education.

Natural language processing (NLP) aims to program machines to interpret human language as humans do. It could quantify aspects of medical education that were previously amenable only to qualitative methods. The application of NLP to medical education has been accelerating over the past several years. This article has three aims. First, we introduce the reader to NLP. Second, we discuss the potential of NLP to help integrate FOAM (Free Open Access Medical Education) resources with more traditional curricular elements. Finally, we present the results of a systematic review. We identified 30 articles indexed by PubMed as relating to medical education and NLP, 14 of which were of sufficient quality to include in this review. We close by discussing potential future work using NLP to advance the field of medical education in emergency medicine.

Intrinsic CanMEDS Competencies Expected of Medical Students During Emergency Medicine Core Rotation: A Needs Assessment.

ObjectivesThere are few high-quality free open-access medical (FOAM) education resources to guide medical students in the development of key non-medical expert skills and competencies during their emergency medicine (EM) clerkship core rotation. In our endeavor to develop a novel online educational EM curriculum for medical students, a needs assessment is required to effectively address needs specifically focused on aptitudes that are deemed to be imperative by educators in the EM academia.MethodsAn online needs assessment survey was developed and shared with residents, staff, nurses, and program/clerkship directors of Canadian emergency medicine programs by email correspondence and embedding the form on CanadiEM.org. The survey consisted of twelve proposed topics for a potential EM curriculum, which were graded on a five-point Likert scale. Free-typed responses for additional topics were also solicited from participants.ResultsOver the course of four weeks, 84 participants responded to the survey. Participants outside of North American were excluded (n=10). Most participants were North American staff physicians (n=52), which included residency program directors (n=10) and clerkship directors (n=6), followed by residents (n=14), and nurses (n=8). All 12 topics proposed by the authors were considered important for inclusion in an EM curriculum. Nine additional topics were identified from typed free-text responses. Top ranking topics included: how to present a case to an EM staff or resident, how to chart patient encounters, and how to effectively communicate with nurses and other healthcare professionals.ConclusionsThis online needs assessment analysis revealed a total of 21 topics that were deemed to be relevant to the development of an online curriculum to foster the development of core competencies of medical students during their EM core rotation.