This a very cool project. How to make an ultrasound simulator on the cheap for use in training scenarios. We’ve already featured the first Australian implentation of this project (The Australian EDUS2 Project) in the 63rd LITFL Review. In yet another great video from SAEM2012, Paul Kulyk and Paul Olszynski the originators of this project tell the world what it’s all about:

Check out the EDUS2 website, where you can access the code, videos and design plans for free — all you need is to provide the hardware.

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog

It is the end of the week – for some people – and time to reward yourself with some audiovisual stimulation, Something to energise your very core…

Visual graphics bring familiar music to life and allow the listener to really ‘see’ the music

Stephen Malinowski experiments with his Music Animation Machine to provide a visual manifestation of timbre, rhythm, tonality, reflection and triadic relationships. His experimental work on demonstrating bowing structure is well demonstrated with his experimental work on Bach Cello Suite No.1 in G, prelude (BWV 1007). In this video we see a ”caterpillar” walking between notes, with the notes highlighted by ”harmonic colouring“. The colour of the caterpillar is a mixture of the color of the current note and the note that was just previously played and the width of the caterpillar corresponds to the loudness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XziwXVxUdA4

Performed by Vito Paternoster; recording courtesy of Magnatune

If you prefer the full orchestral score then…sit back and relax to this audiovisual extravaganza on full screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qglck7rpI3w

If you enjoyed the audiovisual stimulation – then check out this documentary – A brief history of The Music Animation Machine and related musical explorations of Stephen Malinowski

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQfzNJGnqnw

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog

Mike Mallin is half of the enthusastic educational entertainment team that dreamed up and present the now legendary Ultrasound Podcast ( the other half being Matt Dawson). Mike was at SAEM2012, where he spoke about the history and educational philosophy behind their magnificent creation.

Check out what he has to say:

.. and don’t forget about their awesome One Minute Ultrasound App.

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog

For bloody ages now I’ve been meaning to give EM Lyceum a shout out. Fortunately, thanks to SAEM12 I can now easily let the creators of this interesting blog-based approach to emergency medicine education speak for themselves:

Check out the EM Lyceum for evidence-based debate on key and controversial topics in emergency medicine. Fans of the LITFL case-based Q&As will love the rough and tumble of the Lyceum. Our hats are off to the creators, Whitney K. Bryant and Anand Swaminathan.

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog

Graham Walker is an emergency physician at the cutting edge of how our specialty interfaces with technology and social media. You know him, of course, from MDCalc, TheNNT and perhaps even his new blog Gmergency! Graham recently gave a talk at the Stanford Grand Rounds called ‘E-mergency Medicine’.

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtkggenLmlE

You’d be stupid not to watch it.

Graham looks to the past to show how slow the spread of ideas used to be (think Semmelweis then Lister and Halsted) and compares it to the social media driven present (using EMCrit’s Delayed Sequence Intubation and the Best Use for a Bougie as examples). He cuts through the flaws of traditional peer review and suggests that social media-based crowd sourcing may be the way forward (although he highlights the potential pitfalls too). He also talks about his concept of a peripheral brain using a website as a readily accessible resource. Graham goes onto discuss the key resources he uses to stay up-to-date and keep learning: including the best blogs, podcasts and iphone apps. he finishes with his view of the future for emergency medicine academics and learning.

References:

• Full reference list for talk - Stanford Grand Rounds, May 9, 2012.

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog

Seth Trueger (remember him from posts such as Awake Intubation in Audio and Best Use for a Bougie) got caught on video at the recent Society of Academic Emergency Medicine 2012 Annual Meeting. He shares his top six electronic resources, including blogs, podcasts, websites and iphone apps.

Here’s the video:

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog

Yesterday I put up a quick post on the Social Media Revolution, featuring links to some great social media presentations from the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine 2012 Annual Meeting, which is currently in progress in Chicago.

I’ve been really impressed with how the organisers of this conference have embraced social media to highlight all the cool stuff that’s going on there. Apart from using the twitter hashtag #SAEM12 to keep track of twitter commentary, the inclusion of talks by some great people on the intersection of social media and emergency medicine, and the conference even having its own iphone app (!), there are the amazing videos.

The videos are gold. A seemingly innumerable number of short video presentations have been uploaded onto the Academic Emergency Medicine Vimeo page, and I have been following @ScottJoing trying to keep up with them all. As an aside, you should all know Scott from the HQMEDED project — a brilliant beacon of the asynchronous learning/ social media/ online video medical education revelatory revolution. But back to the SAEM videos — they’re well produced and to the point, and a great way for presenters to get the message of their research out there.

As an example, check out @EMIMDoc ‘s slick presentation on the best emergency medicine blogs around:

I never thought I’d see the day that the ‘Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five‘ and the ‘Utopian College of Emergency for Medicine‘ would feature at an academic emergency medicine conference, but there you go!

Keep up the great work @SAEMonline.

PS. Don’t forget to check out Academic Emergency Medicine‘s cool Peer Reviewed Lecture (PeRL) project as well!

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog

Is social media a fad?

We don’t think so.

We need to embrace the inevitable, and find ways to use it for the greatest good.

Social media is about people, medicine is about people, education is about people.

So, what’s the problem?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA5Fn_Q10Tk

Check out these Prezi presentations on Social Media in Emergency Medicine delivered yesterday at the SAEM 2012 annual meeting that is currently running in Chicago:

• Social Media and Academic Emergency Medicine: New Tools, New Residencies — Robert Cooney (@EMeducation)

• Social Media Professionalism for the Academic Emergency Physician — Nick Genes (@nickgenes)

• Social Media Engagement and Collaboration — Jason Nomura (@takeokun)

You can also mix it up with the LITFL team on Twitter:

@precordialthump

@sandnsurf

@antidoped

@edjamesburns

@eleytherius

@peterallely

@doctorgerard

@oliflower

@ercleve

@trainthetrainer

@jjlarkin78

@rfdsdoc

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog

Get home from work today and remember that it’s the people that you share your life with that really matter and are what makes life so awesome. Also note, that even if you stuff things up, the end result can still be great — especially if you have little help from your friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDnTo2S2BrA

Brett McKenzie and Kermit do a rendition of “Life’s A Happy Song” from the recent Oscar winning Muppets movie.

Read about On Composing for Kermit the Frog  in the New York Times.

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog

Emergency Physician Dr Brett Nelson from sinaiem.us (a great ultrasound website) recently shared his neat little demonstration of how to straighten a guidewire with one hand. An essential skill if you want to be a guidewire guru!

This is Brett’s description of the trick:

With one hand, you can straighten out the curved end of a guidewire. This is useful when you need to insert the guidewire into the hub of a catheter or needle, and you have already taken the guidewire out of its sheath.

The guidewire actually consists of a coiled wire over a central wire core. Stabilizing the proximal part (with your palm and 3rd-5th fingers) allows your index finger and thumb to stretch the outer coil a bit which straightens the distal aspect of the wire.

Care must be taken not to hold the wire too tightly, which could cause the wire to kink and defeat the purpose of this trick.

You can also read the description of how to do this on Academic Life in Emergency Medicine’s Trick of the Trade: Straightening the Guidewire.

Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency Medicine education blog