Resource Compendium - International Student Association of Emergency Medicine

Are you an EM-bound medical student? Do you want to improve your basics and dive into the Emergency Medicine world? Or do you want to shine during your EM clinical rotation? You are then in the right place!

We want to make your life easier, so we put together an Emergency Medicine Resource Compendium for Medical Students. This is a list of resource suggestions that ranges from classic textbooks to free online resources in Emergency Medicine.

EM MINDSET

We all know that Emergency Medicine is growing, but there are still several places around the world where medical students don’t even know what the specialty is. So it’s really important to understand how this amazing specialty works. We want you to know why “Emergency Medicine is the most interesting 15 minutes of every other specialty”. There are several resources available that will make you master the “physiology” behind an emergency physician!

TEXTBOOKS

Textbooks will give you the necessary background for a life in Emergency Medicine. So it is highly recommended by top EM educators to use them. Remember that it is very important to build your foundation knowledge (“Do not forget the basics!). If you have to pick 1 resource, go with one of these!

Pocket Textbooks

Although less detailed, these pocket guides can help you to review topics focusing simply on diagnosis and treatment.

“Visual” Textbooks

These are very useful for those visual learners. It has some really good pictures that help you for identifying injury patterns and how to master some importante procedures in the ED.

FREE ONLINE RESOURCES

The Free Open Access Medical Education (FOAMed) world has some of the most amazing resources for medical students interested in Emergency Medicine. This is an excellent way to complement the foundation knowledge you will acquire through the textbooks. It’s also an alternative way of learning as many blogs provide interactive cases together with in-depth information about EM core topics.

Don’t forget to watch our podcast on “Online Tools for Medical Students Interested in Emergency Medicine”. The wisdom from Dr. Daniel Cabrera makes this a must-listen podcast for those of you interested in EM!

GENERAL EMERGENCY MEDICINE CONTECT

These websites have a broad range of resources for studying EM. We have selected the ones with more student-friendly information.

International Emergency Medicine (iEM) Education Project: this is one of the most amazing projects ever done when it comes to develop the specialty within the medical student level. This is pretty much an “online book” with a broad range of chapters written in a very student-friendly way.
- It is an international, non-profit project, endorsed by International Federation for Emergency Medicine (IFEM) and supported by emergency medicine professionals from all around the world.
- It aims to promote emergency medicine and provide free, reusable educational content for undergraduate medical trainees and educators.
Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (very important for those of you academically oriented)
CDEM M4 Curriculum (medical student-centered material)
EMBasic (lots of content geared towards medical students and interns)
EM in 5 (lots of content geared towards medical students and interns)
EM Fundamentals
Core EM
Life in the Fast Lane
First 10 EM
emDocs
WikiEM
CanadiEM
EMCrit (a bit more advanced for students but it has excellent content about Critical Care Emergency Medicine)
HQMedEd (short video presentations on a wide variety of EM topics)

EMERGENCY MEDICINE PROCEDURES

iEM Project Procedure Chapters – step-by-step explanations of the most common procedures performed in the ED with videos and images. Very friendly content for medical students and interns.
EM Procedure Resources for Medical Students by the CORD – they have listed all the procedures an EM-bound medical student should know during their rotations. It is a great guide on how and where to study those procedures.

ELECTROCARDIOGRAPHY

Classic Textbook: ECGs for the Emergency Physicians by Amal Mattu and William Brady (Volume 1, Volume 2)
Classic Textbook: Rapid Interpretation of EKGs by Dubin
Life in The Fast Lane – ECG Library – pretty much all the resources a medical student needs to start studying ECG!
University of Utah School of Medicine ECG Learning Center – Don’t forget to check their PDF outline of the website (here).
Dr. Smith ECG Blog
ECG Weekly
ECG Stampede (good for training interpretation of ECGs)
ECG Library
ECG Wave Maven
ECGpedia
StripTease

ULTRASOUND

The Society of Point of Care Ultrasound – compendium of U/S resources.
Ultrasound Narrated Lecture Page – series of narrated lectures (excellent to start learning)
SonoDoc – A Bedside Ultrasound Game, by Stanford University
5 Minute Sono
Ultrasound Podcast
Ultrasound of the Week
Sonospot

GENERAL RADIOLOGY

TOXICOLOGY

EVIDENCE-BASED EMERGENCY MEDICINE

These websites have lots of discussions on the hot-new papers of the EM world. Their work is definitely cutting the knowledge translation window!

POPULAR EMEGENCY MEDICINE JOURNALS

For those of you that prefer journals and peer reviewed publications.

RESEARCH SKILL DEVELOPMENT

Introduction to Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis from John Hopkins University
Clinical Epidemiology from Utrecht University
Research Data Management and Sharing from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Introduction to Data Analysis Using Excel from RICE University
Biostatics in Public Health Specialization from John Hopkins University
Statistical Analysis with R for Public Health Specialization from Imperial College London
Understanding Clinical Research: Behind the Statistics from University of Cape Town
Summary Statistics in Public Health from John Hopkins University
Introduction to the Principles and Practice of Clinical Research from the National Institutes of Health

POINT-OF-CARE APPS

ISAEM has found the following Apps and links to be useful for medical students, physicians etc. who have an interest in Emergency Medicine. ISAEM is not responsible for any of the content of the apps listed on isaem.net, and your judgement should always rely on the clinical findings of the patient.

medscape

Medscape – Medscape from WebMD (medscape.com) is the leading medical resource most used by physicians, medical students, nurses and other healthcare professionals for clinical information. Cost: Free

Epocrates – Easy to use app for drugs, pharmacology, pregnancy & lactation safety, and drug cost. A nice bonus is the pill identification tool when your patient tells you, “I take the little pink pill.” Cost: Free

Prognosis – Bringing all emergencies under a single roof! Each case can be completed in a few minutes, making it an ideal tool for keeping up to date, or even for quick revision before recertification or examinations. Cost: Free

epocr Eponyms – Eponyms brings a short description of more than 1’700 common and obscure medical eponyms (e.g., Rovsing’s sign, Virchow’s node) to your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Cost: Free

Radiology 2.0 – Created by a radiologist and a medical student, this app’s subtitle is “One Night in the ED.” Cost: Free

FATE

FATE CARD – FATE (Focus Assessed Transthoracic Echocardiography), FATE can be performed in few seconds or extended to a more comprehensive echocardiographic examination depending on the clinical requirements. Cost: Free

ULhandbook Emergency Ultrasound Handbook – This is the perfect app for physicians and medical students who are first learning point of care ultrasound. Developed by an Emergency Physician for clinicians and medical students. Cost: Free

unnamed The Acute care testing e-book is an easy-to-use educational source which covers both the traditional oxygenation, electrolyte, metabolite and acid-base parameters as well as the critical biomarkers troponin, D-dimer, NT-proBNP, CRP and hCG. The e-book is a supplement to comprehensive text books. Can be downloaded from www.radiometer.com/handbook. Cost: Free

REdiometer 2

Blood gas – Preanalytics – “Preanalytical errors are said to be the reason for up to 75% of all errors in laboratory medicine. This app focuses on the preanalytical phase of blood gas testing and what operators can do to avoid errors. Cost: Free

Acutecaretesting.org bridges the gap between scientific publications and daily practice with information – from users to users – on the daily issues surrounding acute care testing. Content is provided by healthcare professionals around the world, including opinion leaders, lab managers, point-of-care coordinators, physicians and nurses. Registration is free, and users have the option of subscribing to a quarterly electronically newsletter. Sponsored and maintained by Radiometer.