FOAM!!... what is Niki talking about?? - The Original Kings of County

I always knew about podcasts, but felt that I was not an auditory learner and therefore was reluctant to use it. I would laugh at the jokes, and feel good listening to it. But I didn’t listen to it on a regular basis!

To me, learning was reading Rosens, reading review articles, discussing ground breaking and practice changing articles in journal clubs, and sitting in conference listening to powerpoint based lectures. Even as we revolutionize asynchronous learning in our conference, make note that the asynchronous learning opportunities are still based in traditional learning methods. We can read EM Practice articles, we can go to food and journal club, which are discussions on published articles, etc and etc.

However, I believe that we are at a crossroads in education, and adopting asynchronous learning is a step in that direction. I am talking about FOAM! FOAM has ignited momentum and excitement in medical education, and I believe is the way we will educate ourselves starting now and into the future.

I think this quote summarizes it all:

If you want to know how we practiced medicine 5 years ago, read a textbook.

If you want to know how we practiced medicine 2 years ago, read a journal.

If you want to know how we practice medicine now, go to a conference.

If you want to know how we will practice medicine in the future, listen in the hallways and use FOAM.

– Joe Lex

This quote is from Joe Lex (@JoeLex5), from a talk he gave at the 9th annual New York Symposium on International Emergency Medicine. I got this quote from a website and blog by Chris Nickson (@precordialthump). If you go to the link, you will see the write up by Dr. Nickson from August 27th 2012. You will see links to the talk from Joe Lex, you will see links to all 15 talks from the conference! You also notice that when I mention the names of these doctors, I include their twitter hashtags. You can follow them on twitter and get even more up to date information, straight from their minds, without that annoying time delay of publication time or that annoying burden of geographical distance.

All this for free, because that is what FOAM stands for: Free Open Access Meducation. According to the people at The Skeptics Guide to Emergency Medicine, FOAM was started over a few drinks at the ICEM Conference in 2012. They describe it as “medical education for anyone, anywhere, anytime.”

Many of us already are involved in FOAM education, such as listening to Weingart’s EM Crit and Amal Mattu’s EKGs lectures, which just featured an EKG by Dr. Alzarani on Jan 14th. Another great FOAM ultrasound site is from one of our former residents, Haney Mallemat who goes by @CriticalCareNow on twitter. One point to make, many don’t consider FOAM to include EMRAP because EMRAP requires a subscription. Those who believe in FOAM, truly believe in ALL aspects of FOAM – free and accessible. Therefore, podcasts, lectures from conferences (including the amazing Amal Mattu leadership lecture), review topics, interesting articles, all find a home in FOAM.

There are concerns however about the quality about what gets published. You can’t believe everything that is on the internet, and really anyone can write on the internet! (Such as myself!). Dr. Michelle Lin just this week began an online discussion and issued a challenge to address this concern about the supposed peer review process for material published as FOAM. Traditional medical communities will accept journals that are published because there is a peer review process, editors, and content experts that will review materials. But is the same there for online materials? I feel that this will all get figured out in time. In the meantime, most of the material that gets published on her blog, Academic Life in Emergency Medicine is undergoing a peer review rating process similar to Amazon or Yelp. For insightful discussion about the peer review process, please read this posting by Boring EM.

But NOW is the time to join FOAM! Its free, its ground breaking, its entertaining.. but more than that, it is good for our education! Do what I did, get a twitter account, learn what hashtags are, and start learning!

Please share your thoughts!

Nikita (@njoshi8)

Some sites to Follow, not inclusive (not in any particular order):

EM Crit – http://emcrit.org/

Mattu – http://ekgumem.tumblr.com/

Smith – http://hqmeded-ecg.blogspot.com/

Ultrasound – http://www.sonospot.com/

Life in the Fast Lane – http://lifeinthefastlane.com/

Prehospital – http://prehospitalmed.com/welcome-from-minh/

Poison – http://www.thepoisonreview.com/

Skeptics Guide – http://thesgem.com/

Boring EM – http://boringem.com/

The views expressed on this blog are the author's own and do not reflect the views of their employer. Please read our full disclaimer here. Any references to clinical cases refer to patients treated at a virtual hospital, Janus General Hospital.