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We Must Analyze and Clear Up the Ethical Issues in FOAM

By Nathan G. Allen, MD, FACEP; Eashwar B. Chandrasekaran, MD, Msc; Rebecca R. Goett, MD, FACEP, FAAHPM; Nicholas H. Kluesner, MD, FACEP; and Laura Vearrier, MD, DBioethics; ACEP Ethics Committee | on November 16, 2018 | 2 Comments
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We Must Analyze and Clear Up the Ethical Issues in FOAM

Dr. Allen is in the department of emergency medicine at Billings Clinic in Billings, Montana.

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ACEP Now: Vol 37 – No 11 – November 2018

Dr. Chandrasekaran is at Boone County Emergency Medicine in Indianapolis.

Dr. Goett is in the department of emergency medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark.

Dr. Kluesner is at UnityPoint Health in Des Moines, Iowa.

Dr. Vearrier is in the department of emergency medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia.

The authors are members of the ACEP ethics committee.

References

  1. Nickson CP, Cadogan MD. Free open access medical education (FOAM) for the emergency physician. Emerg Med Australas. 2014;26(1):76-83.
  2. Carroll CL, Bruno K, vonTschudi M. Social media and free open access medical education: the future of medical and nursing education? Am J Crit Care. 2016;25:93-96.
  3. Thoma B, Mohindra R, Artz JD, et al. CJEM and the changing landscape of medical education and knowledge translation. CJEM. 2015;17(2):184-187.
  4. Mallin M, Schlein S, Doctor S, et al. A survey of the current utilization of asynchronous education among emergency medicine residents in the United States. Acad Med. 2014;89(4):598-601.
  5. Ventola CL. Social media and health care professionals: benefits, risks, and best practices. P T. 2014;39(7):491-520.
  6. Ferris LE, Fletcher RH. Conflict of interest in peer-reviewed medical journals: the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) position on a challenging problem. Cardiovasc Diagn Ther. 2012;2(3):188-191.
  7. Lin M, Joshi N, Grock A, et al. Approved Instructional Resources series: a national initiative to identify quality emergency medicine blog and podcast content for resident education. J Grad Med Educ. 2016;8(2):219-225.
  8. Chan TM, Grock A, Paddock M, et al. Examining reliability and validity of an online score (ALiEM AIR) for rating free open access medical education resources. Ann Emerg Med. 2016;68(6):729-735.
  9. Chan TM, Thoma B, Krishnan K, et al. Derivation of two critical appraisal scores for trainees to evaluate online educational resources: a METRIQ study. West J Emerg Med. 2016;17(5):574-584.
  10. Thoma B, Sanders JL, Lin M, et al. The social media index: measuring the impact of emergency medicine and critical care websites. West J Emerg Med. 2015;16(2):242-249.
  11. Carpenter CR, Sherbino J. How does an “opinion leader” influence my practice? CJEM. 2010;12(5):431-434.
  12. Doumit G, Gattellari M, Grimshaw J, et al. Local opinion leaders: effects on professional practice and health care outcomes. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007;(1):CD000125.
  13. Rogers EM. Diffusion of Innovations, 4th ed. Simon and Schuster; 2010.
  14. Thoma B, Rolston D, Lin M. Global Emergency Medicine Journal Club: social media responses to the March 2014 Annals of Emergency Medicine journal club on targeted temperature management. Ann Emerg Med. 2014;64(2):207-212.
  15. Thoma B, Mohindra R, Artz JD, et al. CJEM and the changing landscape of medical education and knowledge translation. CJEM. 2015;17(2):184-187.
  16. Keating NL, Zaslavsky AM, Ayanian JZ. Physicians’ experiences and beliefs regarding informal consultation. JAMA. 1998;280(10):900-904.
  17. Burden M, Sarcone E, Keniston A, et al. Prospective comparison of curbside versus formal consultations. J Hosp Med. 2013;8(1):31-35.
  18. Thoma B, Sebok-Syer SS, Krishnan K, et al. Individual gestalt is unreliable for the evaluation of quality in medical education blogs: a METRIQ study. Ann Emerg Med. 2017;70(3):394-401.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 | Single Page

Topics: Education & TrainingEthicsFOAMFOAMed

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2 Responses to “We Must Analyze and Clear Up the Ethical Issues in FOAM”

  1. November 26, 2018

    John Dayton, MD, FACEP, FAAEM Reply

    This is a great article on a timely topic. The free, worldwide access that effectively uses multimedia is a major selling point for me. I get some of the cons, but feel like #FOAMed users consume these resources as part of their continuing education and most #FOAMed resources focus on research rather than trying to avoid peer review for new ideas.

    #FOAMed tools are a great adjunct and proper incorporation into education seems to be a focus of leading groups like SAEM’s Social Media Committee, ALiEM, and ACEP’s Council of EMed Residency Directors (CORD).

  2. December 2, 2018

    Anton Helman Reply

    Many FOAMed resources have a strict conflict of interest policy that is similar to medical journals. Industry/pharma influence is far more pervasive in peer reviewed journals than in FOAMed. Example: https://emergencymedicinecases.com/conflict-interest-policy/.
    The following issues are not unique to FOAMed but to many medical education resources:
    1. Patient confidentiality issues are the same regardless of whether the resource is a peer reviewed article or FOAMed resource.
    2. World wide access is true for texbooks, peer reviewed journal articles, FOAMed resources.
    3. No Curriculum is true for texbooks, peer reviewed journal articles, FOAMed resources. Universities set curriculums based on all of the above.
    4. Eminence vs evidence is true for any speaker at any medical conference and any opinion leader writing an editorial in a peer reviewed journal.

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