Not Another Boring Lecture

Stacey Poznanski, Chris Chapman, Sally Stanten, Meg Wolff CGEA 2013 – Cincinnati, Ohio Normal lectures with a power point presentation full of bullet points does not lead to long term retention. We need to start with the acknowledgement of this fact. This inefficaciousness begs us to do something differently. We can still use the lecture…More

Emergence

A recent(-ly rebroadcast) of one of my favorite podcasts, Radiolab, talked about the concept of emergence. They started with the example of fireflies on miles of riverbank in Thailand all flashing in unison. There is no conductor, they just somehow do it. Similarly, individually blind and thoughtless ants together spontaneously organize to create feats of…More

Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us

Steven Brill wrote “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us” in Time Magazine, Feb 20, 2013. This 36-page behemoth is actually a quick read, and I think worth the time spent. I never learned this stuff in medical school. As doctors, we order tests for the “benefit of the patient” regardless of cost. We…More

There’s not nothing more we can do

Ashley Shreeves (from SmartEM) is an EM doctor in NY who took a year to do a palliative care fellowship. Now she practices both. It would, at first, seem to be paradoxical. In EM, we are trained to do something. For us, the end-of-life is a challenge to overcome – not to be met gracefully.…More

An introduction to Medicare and the Affordable Care Act

Many students have asked me for an explanation of how the health care system works. When we are done with that, we’ll review Consciousness and the Meaning of Life. That’s a big question. So, let’s take it in pieces. First let’s look at Medicare. This is a government sponsored program that provides health care funding…More

Enhancing pain scale effectiveness

I’ve never really understood the utility of the pain scale. I understand that certain certifying bodies mandate its use and therefore we’re required to use it, but for me, when people consistently rate their pain at 11 or 13 – I never understood how I was to use this. Seems patients have difficulty with it…More

Splint Like a Pro

Paul Casey and I were making videos to teach splinting. The lighting was poor, the audio terrible and Paul’s splint application technique was pathetic. So we instead decided to see if someone else has already done this. Luckily someone has. Rob Orman (from the ERcast podcast). It’s called Splint-Like-A-Pro because Rob goes to the ortho…More

Ubiquitous learning (uLearning) and iPads

The use of mobile devices (like smart phones and old school PDA’s) allow for students to learn within the context of what they are studying. For example, a student learning about plants can be out in the forest with their device. A student learning about social sciences can be in a museum. The devices can…More