Educational Advances

Targeted Simulation-based Leadership Training for Trauma Team Leaders

Rosenman, MD, et al.

Traditionally, healthcare curricula have included leadership as a small component of broader teamwork training, with very few examples of leadership-focused curricula. The objective of this work is to describe a novel simulation-based team leadership curriculum that easily adapts to individual learners.

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Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Learners in Emergency Medicine

Meeks, PhD, et al.

In this account, the authors reflect on the successful experiences of a visiting DHoH (deaf and hard of hearing) medical student in an academic EM rotation at a Level I trauma hospital that serves a diverse population, and they identify the potential challenges for DHoH students in an EM setting, offer solutions including reasonable accommodations, and provide commentary on the legal requirements for providing full and equal access for DHoH students.

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Provider Workforce

Emergency Medicine Physician Assistant (EMPA) Postgraduate Training Programs: Program Characteristics and Training Curricula

Kraus, DO, et al.

The objective of this study was to provide an overview of the current state of EMPA postgraduate training and to describe program characteristics and curriculum components. We conducted a cross-sectional study of EMPA postgraduate training programs using data from websites and contacting individual programs to provide program characteristics and curriculum components.

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Identifying Gaps and Launching Resident Wellness Initiatives: The 2017 Resident Wellness Consensus Summit

Zaver, MD, et al.

In 2017 the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) updated the Common Program Requirements to focus more on resident wellbeing. To address this issue, one working group from the 2017 Resident Wellness Consensus Summit (RWCS) focused on wellness program innovations and initiatives in emergency medicine (EM) residency programs.

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Using Medical Student Quality Improvement Projects to Promote Evidence-Based Care in the Emergency Department

Manning, BS, et al.

We set out to determine the feasibility of using third-year medical students’ action learning projects (QI projects) to expedite implementation of evidence-based pathways for three common patient diagnoses in the ED setting as well as develop a model for promoting bidirectional alignment at an institutional level. We further evaluated clinician perspectives on using medical students at the forefront of QI pathway development.

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Exploratory Application of Augmented Reality/Mixed Reality Devices for Acute Care Procedure Training

Kobayashi, MD, et al.

Investigators initiated an exploratory program to enable the study of AR/MR use-cases in acute care clinical and instructional settings. Investigators implemented a core holoimaging pipeline infrastructure and modular open-access repository to generate and enable access to modular holoimages during exploratory pilot stage applications for invasive procedure training that featured innovative AR/MR techniques on off-the-shelf headset devices.

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Creating a Vision for Education Leadership

Martin, MD, MBA, et al.

This brief innovative report will provide tools and examples to articulate a vision statement for education leadership and the steps needed for implementation. The objective of this innovation is for the readers to develop their own vision, mission and core values, and to begin to consider how they will develop their strategy and platform for implementation. While these VMCV may be aligned with your organization’s VMCV, it is important to define your own. Examples of VMCV from education leaders will be presented. This concept is based on a workshop from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) in 2017 that was developed by key education leaders in the field of EM.

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Calling All Curators: A Novel Approach to Individualized Interactive Instruction

Pensa, MD, et al.

We describe a digital course in EM, “Asynchrony,” as an approach to FOAM to meet these III standards. Asynchrony is geared toward EM residents using FOAM and other online learning tools, curated by faculty into narrative, topic-specific educational modules. Each module requires residents to complete a topic assignment, participate in a discussion board, and pass a quiz to earn ACGME-approved III didactic credit; all of this is tracked and filed in an online learning management system.

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Development of a Novel Ultrasound-guided Peritonsillar Abscess Model for Simulation Training

Ng, MD, MPH, et al.

Peritonsillar abscess (PTA) is the most common deep space infection of the head and neck presenting to emergency departments.1 No commercial PTA task trainer exists for simulation training. Thus, resident physicians often perform their first PTA needle aspiration in the clinical setting, knowing that carotid artery puncture and hemorrhage are serious and devastating complications. While several low-fidelity PTA task trainers have been previously described, none allow for ultrasound image acquisition.6–9 We sought to create a cost-effective and realistic task trainer that allows trainees to acquire both diagnostic ultrasound and needle aspiration skills while draining a peritonsillar abscess.

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Anything but Shadowing! Early Clinical Reasoning in Emergency Department Improves Clinical Skills

Royan, MPH, et al.

Transitioning from the pre-clinical environment to clerkships poses a challenge to students and educators alike. Students along with faculty developed the Clinical Reasoning Elective (CRE) to provide pre-clinical students exposure to patients in the emergency department and the opportunity to build illness scripts and practice clinical skills with longitudinal mentorship in a low-stakes environment before entering clerkships. It is a voluntary program. Each year, the CRE has received overwhelming positive feedback from students. The objective of this study is to determine if the CRE improved students’ clinical skills and reported comfort in their skills.

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Contact Information

WestJEM/ Department of Emergency Medicine
UC Irvine Health

333 The City Blvd. West, Rt 128-01
Suite 640
Orange, CA 92868, USA
Phone: 1-714-456-6389
Email: editor@westjem.org

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WestJEM
ISSN: 1936-900X
e-ISSN: 1936-9018

CPC-EM
ISSN: 2474-252X

Our Philosophy

Emergency Medicine is a specialty which closely reflects societal challenges and consequences of public policy decisions. The emergency department specifically deals with social injustice, health and economic disparities, violence, substance abuse, and disaster preparedness and response. This journal focuses on how emergency care affects the health of the community and population, and conversely, how these societal challenges affect the composition of the patient population who seek care in the emergency department. The development of better systems to provide emergency care, including technology solutions, is critical to enhancing population health.