Medical Education Transitions

I have been noticeably absent from the online space over the past few months.  However, I think I have a valid reason for this.  I am excited to announce a major professional transition.  I have been given an incredible opportunity, and am excited to begin a new chapter in my career.

Beginning January 4, 2016, I will begin as the Education Editor for the NEJM Group within the Massachusetts Medical Society, which oversees the New England Journal of Medicine and other educational offerings such as Knowledge+.  This position will allow me to learn from and work with an amazing group of folks in medical publishing, and provide exposure to new opportunities for learning in healthcare.  I will work with the adaptive personalized learning product, Knowledge+, and will learn from the other journal deputy editors associated with the Review Articles within the Journal.  NEJM Group already is well established with the Journal itself, Journal Watch, Knowledge+, CareerCenter, and a new product launched in December 2015 called NEJM Catalyst that focuses on healthcare delivery.  Clinically, I will care for patients and continue to teach residents through the Med-Peds Residency at Brigham & Women’s/Children’s Hospital of Boston affiliated with Harvard Medical School, after getting settled.

This means leaving my academic home, the Indiana University School of Medicine, to begin this full-time position with NEJM Group.  I have learned so much from the incredible people there; I will miss my mentors, colleagues and friends who have taught me so much.  I will miss the CME team, who has helped me better understand how physicians and other health care providers learn.  Of course, the residency program with which I have been associated since 2002, and prior to that as a resident trainee, will always be a part of what I do.  As much as I will miss it, I leave knowing that the program is in good hands and thriving, with amazing residents and faculty!

I am excited to begin this new journey; the folks at NEJM Group have been so welcoming to me.  I will pick up my Twitter and blogging presence, and look forward to sharing my experiences with my medical education friends, colleagues, learners and mentors!

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.