It’s orientation week for our new residents in Saskatoon. As we pride ourselves on our presentation abilities at my institution, part of the transition to residency was a talk about creating a great presentation by my brilliant colleague Rob Woods. Read on to learn from his wisdom. Why do you need to give a great presentation? We’ve all gone to conference talks that make you want to sleep, only you can’t because you also feel like poking your …
Failure to Fail Part 2: Types of Evaluation Bias
We know that the best way to evaluate learners is by directly observing what they do in the workplace. Unfortunately [for a variety of reasons] we do not do enough of this. In my last post I described some reasons why we sometimes fail at making appropriate judgments about failing learners. When it comes to providing feedback, there is much room for improvement.We know that feedback can be influenced by the source, the …
Teaching Trainees at Different Levels in the ED
Like many institutions, we have a mix of EM resident learners rotating through our departments. Expectations and competencies of junior learner differ greatly from that of a senior learner. For Example: PGY 1 – Focus on clinical skills e.g. Xray reading and procedures PGY2-4 – Focus on more challenging patient encounters e.g. medical and procedural management of the septic patient PGY 5 – Focus on managerial roles e.g. taking referrals from family doctors …
FOAM Is Good for You!
I recently gave a talk on FOAM (or FOAM-ED) – Free Open Access Medical Education– an acronym coined by Mike Cadogan at the Dublin ICEM 2012 conference. The legend will state that the idea of FOAM was borne over a pint of Guinness and, like Guinness – FOAM is good for you! The concept of FOAM came about because Mike felt that the term “social media” when used in an Emergency Medicine context tends to turn people off. This is particularly evident with …
Failure to Fail Part 1- Why faculty evaluation may not identify a failing learner
I recently gave a talk to fellow faculty on the phenomenon of “failure to fail” in emergency medicine. I am no expert, but I have tried to synthesize the details in a useful way. I have broken it down into three parts. Part 1 deals with the phenomenon of Failure to Fail. In two follow up posts I will introduce some forms of evaluator bias and then provide a prescription for more effective …
Injury Prevention – Dr Emily Sullivan
“Find some reason that makes you want to advocate for injury prevention and start advocating!” Dr. Emily Sullivan A while back one of my senior residents gave us an engaging talk on injury prevention. I was so inspired that I asked her to guest blog on ERmentor – enjoy! Introduction Patients suffering from injuries are commonly seen in everyone’s emergency department. Thankfully, injuries can be studied and understood just like any other disease. By …