Here are some of the great Free Open Access Medical Education (FOAM or FOAMed) resources that I have found useful and enjoyable.
My interests consists of adult and pediatric primary care in the office, urgent care center, and in the provision of housecalls.
All of these blogs and podcasts are from emergency medicine specialists.
But almost everything that emergency physicians deal with acute care primary physicians deal with.
At least 80% of emergency department visits end up not being admitted to the hospital. For these patients the most important decision the physician makes is: Who is safe to go home and who isn’t. And that is a decision made many times a day by primary care physicians in offices, urgent care centers, and housecall practices.
The above is why I find the emergency medicine blogs and podcasts so useful.
First is emcrit.org by Dr. Scott Weingart. Dr. Weingart is a master teacher. The focus is on critical care. These podcasts can be downloaded and listened to in your car or when exercising, etc.
Here are links to some EmCrit podcasts (all the others are as great as the ones below):
- Podcast 3 – Laryngoscope as a Murder Weapon (LAMW) Series – Ventilatory Kills – Intubating the patient with Severe Metabolic Acidosis
May 22, 2009 by Scott Weingart - Preoxygenation, Reoxygenation and Deoxygenation
This page is a must review for anyone (doctor, nurse practitioner, or paramedic who may be responsible for emergency airway management. - EMCrit Podcast 16 – Coding Asthmatic, DOPES and Finger Thoracostomy
December 23, 2009 by Scott Weingart. This podcast gives you a practical method of treating the coding asthmatic on the ventilator using the DOPES mneumonic. And Dr. Weingart describes the finger thoracostomy as much better alternative to needle decompression for a suspected tension pneumothorax.
And just as great as emcrit is the Canadian Emergency Medicine podcast site, Emergency Medicine Cases, at https://emergencymedicinecases.com/. The founder and moderator is Dr. Anton Helman who is a teacher in Dr. Weingart’s league. Here are some links to a few of the outstanding podcasts:
- Emergency Medicine Summaries – This page has a complete list of PDF summaries of all 90 EMC cases to date. These summaries of the podcasts are incredibly good. Visit this page!
- EM Cases Best of 2016 Top Ten Just reviewing this page and visiting its links will give you a good idea of how great and practical this site is.
- Episode 84 – Congenital Heart Disease Emergencies
- Episode 79 – Management of Acute Pediatric Asthma Exacerbations
I have recently been spending a lot of time at emdocs.net. These posts are brief and useful and seem to cover almost every aspect of acute and emergency care. Here is a recent post of mine in which I summarize five outstanding emdocs posts just so you can get a feeling for this tremendous resource: emDocs.net – A Great Site With 5 Examples
Posted on December 23, 2016 by Tom Wade MD
For pediatrics, Dr. Sean Fox’s outstanding Pediatric EM Morsels. His posts are brief and practical and cover every common, and many uncommon pediatric problems. And his blog is relevant and useful for every pediatrician (including family doctors, nurse practioners, and emergency physicians who care for children).
There are many other great free useful medical education sites that you will discover as you explore these sites.
