Using Technology for Lifelong Learning in Medicine

I think that in the current age of “everything at one’s fingertips”, in the form of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, the concept of lifelong learning has never been more important.  How does a physician “keep up”?  What are the skills that are important for physicians to have?  Dr. Vartabedian has written extensively on the subject of the digital literacy that is needed for today’s physicians.  Curating, collating, and how to find what one needs are skills that need to be taught, not only to students and residents, but also to practicing clinicians.

Given the plethora of sources available, I am seeing trainees more and more asking “what should I read/study?”  This is interesting, since there never have been more resources available than in today’s age.  I’d like to give just a few examples of tools that I find incredibly helpful.

[Full disclosure, I have no financial conflicts with any of these tools mentioned.  My spouse is an emergency physician in community practice.]

Browzine.  I use this resource on a mobile tablet through my institutional library subscription.  It allows opportunity to get full text articles from most of the journals with which our library has a subscription.  It is also great to review table of contents quickly, with fast linking to the full text if I want to read more.

NEJM Knowledge+. This resource is a way to review content for internal medicine (and family medicine) through adaptive learning, which is very unique.  I think of it as “smart testing”, whereby one inputs both answers to multiple choice questions, as well as her/his confidence in the answer provided.  Here is a link to an explanation on this type of learning.  I have used my own account to choose questions for residents during education conferences, and the engagement from the residents has been quite impressive.  There is also an opportunity to purchase an account for an entire residency program.

ALiEM: this is a compendium by emergency medicine specialists which is an incredible resource for those interested in this field.  It includes posts on staying healthy, links to apps pertinent to caring for patients in an emergency setting, resources for teaching in emergency medicine, as well as learning emergency medicine.    I especially like the videos describing procedures in the ED setting.  For those interested in improving their educator skills, the MEdiC links are incredibly helpful.

Twitter: there is an incredible community of practice related to medical educators on Twitter.  I learn so much from folks I have met, and also many I have yet to meet in real life.  A Thursday evening, 9 pm EDT Twitter chat on medical education topics is a great opportunity to start learning from others.  For literature on this topic, see these two articles: one on using Twitter as a learning tool, and one on social media for lifelong learning. 

I am curious what other online resources and technology that others are using for their own lifelong learning.  

Technology in Medical Education

I was given the privilege of presenting the keynote talk at a faculty development session for the Indiana University School of Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine earlier this week.  The theme of the entire day was using technology in education.  The opening speaker, Dr. Bart Besinger, gave a phenomenal talk on “How to give a lecture with or without technology”.  It was one of the most engaging talks I have ever heard, and included practical information and tips for making one’s didactics top notch!  Later in the day, the topic I spoke about was the use of social media to communicate and teach in medicine.  It was a wonderful opportunity to network with colleagues from outside of my own departments, and I found the faculty completely engaged and willing to try something new.

We discussed some of the literature on the use of social media in medicine and medical education, and how educators can leverage social media as a tool to disseminate medical information.  The highlight came at the end, when we taught the faculty how to use Twitter.  The goal was to have 5 new faculty join Twitter.  Many more joined, and the discussion was nothing short of fabulous.  It was clear that the faculty were wholly accepting of taking the plunge to use Twitter in medical education (the hashtag used was #IUEMFacDev).

Today, the learning that took place just two days ago was put into action.  The faculty used a hashtag (#IUEMTalks) for their own lecture series.  Kudos to Dr. Dan Rusyniak, for putting on this great workshop.  I appreciate so much the invitation to share and learn from emergency medicine faculty colleagues, as well as the  willingness of so many to put into practice this new learning tool. 

Here is a link to the workshop handouts.

In an upcoming venue, our institution is privileged to host the 1^st inaugural Mobile Computing in Medical Education conference on May 31, 2013, in Indianapolis.  In this conference, we will showcase several different ways in which medical students, residents, fellows and faculty utilize mobile tablets in medical education.  We look forward to sharing the learning opportunities in this one-of-a-kind conference.

So how are you using emerging technology to further medical education?

Reflections on ACEHP13 - Halfway Through

The Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions annual conference is going on right now in San Francisco.  It is about halfway done now, and this post is a series of my thoughts so far based on discussions I have had, or comments people have made in workshops or plenary presentations, that have impacted me as a part of my personal learning network.

1.       The far-reaching, ultimate goal of continuing education is really about improving and optimizing patient care, specifically at a population/community health level.

2.       Quality improvement and patient safety are not fads; they are an integral part of the practice of health education, and linking education to these areas is crucial to achieving #1 above.

3.       Research about education practices is critical to advance the field.

4.       There is a broad scope of activities beyond “live activities” for education of health professionals [I especially like Performance Improvement CME and Point of Care Learning CME as examples, and we need to be doing more of these].

5.       Emerging technology is becoming more relevant every day in continuing education, and we need to embrace it rather than shy away from it.

6.       We need a new paradigm for health care education that needs to be learner-centric, ultimately to achieve #1 above, and communication skills will be a critical component of that education.

7.       Engaging all members of the health care team (from physicians to pharmacists, from nurses to social workers, just to name a few) is critical to the success of optimal patient care and #1 above.  This includes interprofessional education, and also interprofessional practice.

So what do you think?  What are some other take-home points from the conference so far?  Please let me know by coming to the breakout session I am privileged to host with Dr. Jennifer Gunter on February 1, 2013, at 3:15 pm, on “Perspectives in Learning Through Social Media”.