This is not to say that FOAM isn’t still a work in progress, but the progress has been notable. Specifically, the movement as a whole has responded to frequent criticisms that FOAM is too focused on what I call “The Big Three of FOAM”—Critical care, cutting-edge clinical practice, and dogmalysis—at the expense of core content “bread-and-butter” EM. There is now a growing number of online resources that are conspicuous in their focus on core content.

The mission statement of the www.BoringEM.org blog by Brent Thoma, MD (@Brent_Thoma), an emergency medicine resident at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, and Teresa Chan, MD (@TChanMD), assistant professor in the division of emergency medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, addresses the usual FOAM critiques head on—almost defiantly. The blog states, “If you want to read about finger thoracostomies and ocular ultrasound, you’re in the wrong place. BoringEM addresses the unsexy, common aspects of emergency medicine like palliative care, quality improvement, medical education, and urine. If there is an EM topic you have no desire to learn, we will likely cover it.” The blog backs up those claims up with sleek presentations for learners of all levels on key topics ranging from statistics and comparing cervical spine clearance rules to ECGs. They also offer free flash-card decks for board exam practice.

The FOAM movement is also keenly tuned in to the latest in education research. On Twitter, discussions abound about how to best introduce the “flipped classroom” model. The main insight of the past several years? It turns out that presentation style matters. Sure, readers want well-sourced information, but they also want it in a slick, digestible format. Anna Bargren Pickens, MD (@ABargren), of Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, has a blog, www.EMin5.com, that accomplishes this, living up to its name by teaching important concepts via free online videos in, you guessed it, less than five minutes.

My own FOAMcast (@FOAMpodcast), a podcast I cocreated and cohost with Lauren Westafer, DO, MPH (@LWestafer), an emergency medicine resident at Baystate Medical Center in Northampton, Massachusetts, attempts to bridge the gap between FOAM and PAME. We discuss recent FOAM and link it to EM core content texts that we feel are under-represented in the FOAM world. We aren’t alone. EM Basic by Steve Carroll, DO (@EMbasic), an emergency physician in San Antonio, is an established and popular resource for detailed coverage of core content in podcast format.

While FOAM’s honeymoon period is fading, it is transitioning into a stable, lasting, and central component of modern medical education. It has dependable contributors, but it also benefits from an ever-expanding influx of new energy from recent adopters. FOAM is here to stay, but it hasn’t yet settled or become complacent as a movement. And that is why FOAM continues to be the most exciting development in medical education of our time.