FOAM on the Spot - A Needle in a Haystack?

At the SAEM conference, I had the privilege of partaking in a didactic with Dr. Anand Swaminathan, Dr. Ryan Radecki, and Dr. Matt Astin entitled, "FOAM on the Spot - Integration of Online Resources into Real-Time Education and Patient Care."

The cornucopia of free open access medical education (FOAM) resources may be overwhelming and I get frequent requests for guidance sorting through the cornucopia of FOAM.  People often have the question, "I remember hearing about this technique but I can't recall which site and want to review it..."  As such, I've posted a recording of my portion of the didactic here.

The Gist:

• Filter FOAM by searching relevant information - FOAMsearch [1].
• Customized Google search engine of 300+ blogs related to EM/critical care plus journal articles.
• Engage in the community of personal librarians - Twitter (a few pearls on Twitter)
• Tag others when you have a question
• Participate in discussions and "be the librarian" for others.
• Use a system to stay organized and collate resources - AgileMD.
• Pro - Can collate several FOAM blogs, PV cards from Academic Life in Emergency Medicine, WikEM, and podcast notes all in one application on a smart phone/tablet.
• Con - Presently can only build a "library" from a limited number of resources.

As a rather junior individual, selfishly, always welcome constructive feedback on my talks. This is my experiment in crowdsourcing feedback from the FOAM community to become a better presenter.

FOAM on the Spot - Finding a Needle in a Haystack? from Lauren Westafer on Vimeo.

1. Raine T, Thoma B, Chan TM, Lin M. FOAMSearch.net: A custom search engine for emergency medicine and critical care. Emerg Med Australas. 2015;(March):n/a–n/a. doi:10.1111/1742-6723.12404.