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CAEP FEI | The CanadiEM Digital Scholars Program

In Featured, Featured Education Innovations (FEI) by Fareen Zaver MDLeave a Comment

Amy is a third year emergency medicine resident who loves listening to podcasts when she runs. She realizes that she loves using a variety of digital media to enhance her learning. Amy wonders if there is a fellowship opportunity where she can become a leader in digital scholarship. One of her supervisors asks her if she has heard of the CanadiEM Digital Scholars Program. 

With the advent of free open access medical education (FOAM), many trainees are engaging in the creation of digital content. As a result, it is important to educate trainees interested in creating FOAM. This Feature Educational Innovation (FEI), titled, “The CanadiEM Digital Scholars Program: An Innovative International Digital Collaboration Curriculum” was originally posted by the CAEP EWG FEI Team in 2017 and answers the question: “How can we provide trainees with an opportunity be become an expert and creating a variety of educational digital media?” A PDF version is available.

Description of Innovation:

Digital media is a new frontier in medical education scholarship. Asynchronous education resources facilitate a multi-modal approach to teaching, and allows residents to personalize their learning to achieve mastery in their own time. The CanadiEM Digital Scholars Program is a nationwide initiative that provides residents with practical experiences in creating educational materials under the supervision of experts in the field. The program allows for collaboration and access to mentorship from top digital educators from across North America.

Methods

Interested residents accepted into the program spent a period of their PGY4 year completing modules developed in the theory and science behind digital education. Four modules, developed in an iterative process, have been built on the topics of podcasting, blogging, digital identity, and patient communication. Each fellow was supervised by members of the CanadiEM team, a faculty member from the resident’s home institution, and digital experts from across North America.

Curriculum, Tools, and Materials:

The first fellow completed all aspects of the designed curriculum. Above this, the fellow also engaged in blog content creation, initiated research on digital scholarship, and managed the editorial section of CanadiEM. The second fellow is currently halfway through his year (and is expected to complete the program within the year) and has coauthored 30 blog posts and 53 podcasts in 6 months.

Bottom Line

The CanadiEM Digital Scholars Program utilizes a novel approach to foster development of digital educators utilizing experts across North America. The program ensures that our Digital Scholars understand how to integrate medical education evidence and theory into their methods, thereby being able to propel the field of online medical education further through their scholarly projects.

More innovation on how to apply can be found here.

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More about CAEP FEI

This post was originally authored for the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP) Feature Educational Innovations project sponsored by the CAEP Academic Section’s Education Working Group and edited by Drs. Teresa Chan and Julien Poitras. CAEP members receive FEI each month in the CAEP Communiqué. CanadiEM will be reposting some of these summaries, along with a case/contextualizing concept to highlight some recent medical education literature that is relevant to our nation’s teachers.

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Fareen Zaver MD

Fareen Zaver MD

Fareen Zaver is an Emergency Physician based in Calgary. She is the Co-Director for the CanadiEM Digital Scholars Fellowship and is the Lead Editor/Co-Founder of ALiEM Approved Instructional Resources - Professional (AIR-Pro) series
Chirag Bhat

Chirag Bhat

Chirag Bhat is an Emergency Medicine resident at the University of Ottawa. He has interests in medical education and toxicology. He is a basketball fan and cheers for the Toronto Raptors.