Time to Pause, Reflect & Pay It Forward

Gday

So it has been a month since my last post, which I think is a Broomedocs record!  I decided to take a litle time to pause and reflect, do a bit of reading and work on a few of my other projects.  Don’t worry – all the clinical stuff will return soon.  Justin and I have taken a month off from the Journal club to chillax, I have been working on a few new guest podcasts and spending time enjoying the monsoon season in wet and wonderful Broome. So I just thought I should touch base to let you know what is happening and give a shout out to a few excellent things happening in the FOAMed world.

First up:

The Emergency Medicine Ultrasound Groups are a gang of Point of Care US gurus from all over Australia who are running a great new organisation.  Started by Drs Brian O’Connell & Chris Partyka [ @chrispartyka  www.thebluntdissection.org ] this motley crew of passionate POCUS providers has been cobbled together to spread the word about bedside US.  They are running face-to-face meetings in all the major cities of Australia which involve presentations, organisational events and social meetings. The next EMUG event is on in Perth on Thursday 23rd March (check out their blog for details).  I will be virtually attending to give my second EMUG talk on “applying the telejelly” or “Remote POCUS: the longest probe”.  There is a great line up of guest speakers from Australia, Nepal all talking about how we can do better care through POCUS.  So if you are in Perth, check it out… or see the website to find out when the circus is visiting your town.

Next:

I recently “discovered the IMReasoning podcast – this is a show out of New Zealand, run by Drs Art Nahill and Nic Szecket‏ @DrNicSzecket their brand new Twitter handle is @IMReasoning .  The podcast includes clinical cases dissected in great detail by these very funny Internal Med Physicians.  If you are a trainee and want to understand how the “old guys” think – this is a window into the minds of a couple of very smart chaps.  There are also a lot of great interviews with experts in cognitive theory in medical practice, diagnsotic error and some cool futuristic projects around diagnostics.  I recently got in touch with Art and Nic and hope to learn more from them soon.  So do me a favour – pop onto iTunes and have a listen to the podcast, follow them on Twitter and get these guys into #FOAMed.

Next:

More POCUS excellence.  THE POCUS ATLAS is a cool project dreamed up by Dr Michael Macias in Chicago.  The team involves a few familiar US devotees and a few up and coming POCUS lovers.  This project is designed to share clinical images and create a virtual library of cases, images and education to consolidate your POCUS learning.  What we need you to do is to send in your images and clips , just read the “contribute” page for instructions.  We hope to build a free online resource that can be used the world over to teach POCUS.  This is the essence of FOAMed, sharing to enhance caring.  So dust off your USB, open your hard drives and share the love.

Not quite free:

A few years ago I started doing some work for the Hippo group on the Primary Care RAP, the same team that bring you EM:RAP and Paeds RAP to name a few.  Although tis is not free (costs about $350 bucks a year) I believe it is a really useful podcast for anyone working in GP / Primary Care.  The gang at PC RAP are a really fun and smart group of Docs lead by the inimitable Heidi James.  The team love listener engagement, questions and insights from you out there.  So if you haev an idea for the show, a clinical question you want answered or just a chance to bounce ideas off like-minded docs please send them through.  Tweet, email or mail me.

Free, but not OPEN:

I am not a big Facebook fan, it drives me insane with all the ads and complexity of timelines… but there is one Group I do love – the GPDU gang (GPs Down Under).  This started out with a small group of Aussie / Kiwi GPs sharig thoughts over a closed forum and has ballooned into a massive community of 4000 doctors from all over Australasia.  You need to be a GP or GP trainee to join.  Although not “open access”, this community embraces the values of FOAMed and shares widely resources, ideas and support for one another.  So do yourself a favour, get on there and join the conversation.

SMACC un Berlin:

I am really looking forward to dasSMACC in Berlin in a few months.  This year will be alittle different (isn’t it always!) with a giant arena and some huge international guest speakers.  But as always, SMACC is really about the people. The coming together of the FOAM community to share stories and get to know those faces behind the Tweets.  This year I will be doing a bit of teaching on the Bedside US workshops and will be relaxing through the rest.  Should be a great week.  Hope to see you there, please come say “Hi” or “Guten dag”, and if you cannot attend, just join the Twitter storm and follow the frenzy that is SMACC.

Son of SMACC:

If the SMACC conference got pregnant and had a kid, then it would be born in Brisbane this August.  Yes, the child of SMACC – the inaugural DON’T FORGET THE BUBBLES conference is on : 28 – 30th August this year.  Hosted by the awesome team behind DFTB website (Andy Tagg, Tessa Davis, Henry Goldstein, Ben Lawton and friends) – it will be BIG in a LITTLE way.  This is all about Paediatrics – acute, chronic, the big picture and the very small. Speakers from every continent… and a few from Broome too.  So if you are looking for a great way to spend your CME – get in before it is too late. See you there.

Thankyou:  Dr Mike Cadogan is a founder of the FOAMed movement and one of the tech-geniuses behind all that stuff you see out there on the web.  Mike has been fighting tirelessly in the background to keep the hackers at bay and make this blog and many other function.  So a huge thanks to Mike and his elves – what you do really matters to us all!

OK, that’s a bit of what is happening in the backroom, behind the scene here in the Broome Docs lab.  I will be back on the airwaves soon and looking forward to hearing from you.

Catchya

Casey