Happy 2nd Birthday CanadiEM! 2017 in Review

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As 2017 comes to a close, we wanted to look back on the year that was for CanadiEM. From diagnosing artwork, dissecting Rosen’s, and resuscitating the “King of the North” CanadiEM continues to grow faster than we thought possible. We were most honored to receive the 2017 ALiEM Award for ‘Most Innovative Blog / Podcast’ and would like to thank the FOAMed community and avid readers who have supported another astounding year.

After two years in operation, the website has received 1.49 million page views. In 2017 alone, we published 222 new blog posts and received 870,000 pageviews by a worldwide audience hailing from 207 different countries. Led by CRACKCast, podcast downloads have topped out at 430,000, with an average of 33,000 per month.

We look forward to another year of education, collaboration and FOAMed! Let this post serve as a thank you to all those that have contributed over the past year, as well as outline our year in review with a quick look at our top ten posts/ podcasts.

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Background

  • In 2015 we had a dream, motivated by national FOAMed platforms in Australia, the USA, and the United Kingdom. We wanted to create a Canadian based FOAMed site which could become a center for collaboration and education at a national level. Two years and hundreds of posts later we have been able to collaborate with emergency medicine practitioners and learners from coast to coast (and beyond!) and feel that we have successfully created a national FOAMed platform.
  • Our full origin story can be found in last years review
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Who are we?

The year that was

CanadiEM ranks 10th on the AliEM social media index1 which aims to measure the impact of online emergency medicine websites. Over the course of the year, CanadiEM posted 222 new posts spanning medical concepts, opinions and art, academics, and podcasts. These have been spurred by numerous submissions from EM learners and practitioners. Some notable new features include the Arts PRN project led by Tetyana Maniuk (@tetyanaMK), the Blood and Clots series which was built to address the findings of what we believe is one of the first FOAM needs assessments, and two case studies examining the medical implications behind our favourite “Game of Thrones” scenes (here and here!). Continued popular features included the “Physicians as Humans” podcast, an updated CaRMS guide, and (of course) the CRACKCast podcast. The podcast continues to slog through Rosens in an impressively entertaining way. With only 39 chapters left, we are not sure what the Crackcast team will do with all of their free time once they ‘close the book’!

Strategic Alliances with the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine (CJEM), Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP) and Translating Emergency Knowledge of Kids (TREKK) have been maintained with the CAEP FEI series, CJEM infographic creation, and the TREKK guideline posts.

We continued our online education innovation with expansion and development of:

  • Coached Peer Review Process – This program aims to foster junior contributors by assigning an editorial coach to assist junior writers in preparing blog posts. It reimagines the peer review process to help junior writers create great FOAM in a positive learning environment.2
  • Junior Editors Program – A program which engages junior members of the community to help upload new CanadiEM content and engage with the FOAMed community. Beginning with 6 Junior Editors in 2016, the program now engages more than 40 editors!
  • Digital Scholars Program – Officially launched in January of this year after a couple years of pilots, this program aimed to give junior faculty and senior EM residents the opportunity to develop their skill and knowledge in online medical education. It is led by Fareen Zaver and Teresa Chan and you can read more here.

What is in store for 2018?

We are excited for another year and are blown away by the innovation and ideas that are submitted and suggested by contributors and members of our team. Over the next year we hope to:

  • Increase the credibility of FOAM and our website by publishing more of our educational innovations (e.g. the Blood and Clots series needs assessment, the Arts PRN Spot the Diagnosis series, and more!) in the traditional literature
  • Continue to develop existing and new sections across all content described above including active alliances

As we prepare to meet for CAEP 2018, we hope to collaborate and discuss the future of CanadiEM. Stay tuned for updates!

Year-end wisecracks:

Top 10 new posts in 2017

1. Case Report: Hypothermia and Traumatic Arrest in Game of Thrones
2. My Heart Goes Boom… B-blockers in Cardiac Arrest
3. “Allergies” – Sometimes they’re real, but usually they’re not
4. Tiny Tips – Modified Centor Score for Streptococcal Pharyngitis
5. The (real) battle against strep throat
6. Tiny Tips – Cauda Equina Syndrome
7. A letter to my younger self
8. Failing Up and Failing Better
9. One Emergency Resident. One Month of Palliative Care. Ten lessons
10. The Long and Short of Needless IV Extension Sets

Top 10 downloaded new podcasts in 2017

1. CRACKCast E071 – Ophthamology (Part B here!)
2. CRACKCast E078 – ACS (Part B here!)
3. CRACKCast E057 – Knee & Lower Leg
4. CRACKCast E079 – Dysryhthmia
5. CRACKCast E060 – Foreign Bodies
6. CRACKCast E072 – Otolaryngology
7. CRACKCast E065 – Forensic Medicine
8. CRACKCast E081 – Heart Failure
9. CRACKCast E064 – Chemical Injury
10. CRACKCast E059 – Wound Management Principles

References

1.
Thoma B, Sanders J, Lin M, Paterson Q, Steeg J, Chan T. The social media index: measuring the impact of emergency medicine and critical care websites. West J Emerg Med. 2015;16(2):242-249. [PubMed]
2.
Sidalak D, Purdy E, Luckett-Gatopoulos S, Murray H, Thoma B, Chan T. Coached Peer Review: Developing the Next Generation of Authors. Acad Med. 2017;92(2):201-204. [PubMed]

Rob Carey

Rob is an emergency resident with the University of Saskatchewan. His interests include medical education, global health and simulation.