You will come to see the ups and downs that come with the life of “shift work.” While this allows you the flexibility to schedule your work around your family and social obligations (within reason, of course), it also creates its own challenges related to frequently changing sleep and meal schedules that can leave you more tired than you think it should.
As such, we have worked to provide many online learning opportunities, allowing you to master many of the course objectives at times that are convenient to you and to your personal schedule for the month. We have found that students feel this works much better for the “work-life” balance than frequent scheduled lecture time. Additionally, we have found that our medical students – who are adult, independent, and self-directed learners – appreciate these modules.
While it may seem like a lot at first glance, we hope that you will find (as your peers have found) that these are brief quizzes and assignments that complement your clinical time. You should also know that we have reduced your required number of shifts for the rotation to allow you sufficient time to complete these requirements along the way.
As always, please feel free to reach out to Dr. Dyer (Stroger) or Dr. Alcorn (Rush) for any questions or concerns throughout your rotation.
| Clerkship Objective | Online Didactic |
|---|---|
| 1. Patient Care | How to Approach the ER Patient Critical Thinking in the ED |
| 2. Communication | Presentations in the ED CDEM: Consultations in the ED |
| 3. Professionalism | Professionalism |
| 4. Wound Care | CDEM Wound Closure Module + Suture Lab Performance |
| 5. Read an EKG | M4 EKG EKG 101 |
| 6. Airway | CDEM Airway Module Airway Procedures + Sim Lab Performance |
| 7. Breathing | Respiratory Distress and Ventilator Settings + Sim Lab Performance |
| 8. Circulation | Pulseless arrest + Sim Lab Performance ACLS Algorithm (Cyclical) ACLS Algorithm (Flowchart) |
| 9. Toxicology | Toxicology Module |
| 10. Trauma | Trauma CDEM Trauma Module + Sim Lab Performance |
| Additional Topics | |
| Practice Questions | Participation |
Other useful online resources
Here is a curated list of podcasts and videos that match with the topics you’ll be covering in the ER.
| TOPIC | RESOURCES |
|---|---|
| Diagnostic Reasoning in the ER | St. Emlyn’s: Diagnosis 1 St. Emlyn’s: Diagnosis 2 St. Emlyn’s: Diagnosis 3 Ruben Strayer’s Emergency Thinking ← Really like this one |
| Circulation | RP: Shock |
| Chest Pain | St. Emlyn’s: Chest Pain |
| Shortness of Breath | St. Emlyn’s: SOB |
| Headache | St. Emlyn’s: Headache |
| How to call a consult | St. Emlyn’s: Referrals |
| Dr. Sherman’s County Lectures | vimeo website, ask Dr. Dyer for the password |