July 12, 2010

My primary resources in emergency medicine

Emergency medicine (EM) spans all specialties within medicine and as such requires the doctor to 'know a little bit of everything'. As such the reading material is huge and not easy for the new emergency physician (EP) to find the most appropriate reading for each and every clinical topic. The patient in the ED requires a totally different approach than in other settings like in the GP's office or admitted, thus the EP commonly has more practical use of text written by other EPs rather then those of other specialties. Until recently the choice has been rather easy as there are the two "bibles" of EM; Tintinalli's and Rosen´s textbooks of emergency medicine. With the advent of Internet and recently social-media, blogs, tweets, podcasts and even video material is becoming more important since it is completely up-to-date whereas textbooks are rewritten only every 5-10 years. Certainly the times they are changing.

My style of learning and keeping up-to-date involves using online and electronic resources. Every now and then I speed through a chosen chapter in the two bibles mentioned above but increasingly commonly I end up reading some excellent texts online. On this page I want to share with you my experiences and most valuable links to these online resources.

Because of their total size, I have seperated my resources post into three seperate subpages:

Back to basics
Here I iterate the resources you will need for going back to the years of medical school and first years. The online versions of the thick and heavy textbooks, lengthy guidelines and such. Resources you will even use as your references, even bedside or on the run. Be familiar with them and they will save your butt on your next difficult case.

Stayin' alive
Being uptodate is a skill just as important and difficult as getting passed the first years in residency. Here I will mention the most important blogs, podcast and vodcast sites etc. for you to stay uptodate in a fashionable manner. The overwhelming storm of information today will not decease by any means, either you get painfully hit by it like a snow hail or you learn how to enjoy it and inhale it professionally!

Institutions and societies
Maybe the boring part but still the neccessary ones to know. You are not the only EP in the world, there are big societies and institutions having their important messages and sayings and as an active EP you must be aware of these. This page will help you out.



Other link collections
If you're still hungry for more (how is that possible?!) here are other great collections I have found:

1 comment:

  1. Toppen, tack! Frågan är bara hur jag ska tackla denna underbara "information overload"...

    /Kollega SÖS

    ReplyDelete