Free Open Access Medical education (FOAM) for the emergency physician

FOAM is ‘free open-access med(ical ed)ucation’. As such, FOAM is a dynamic collection of resources and tools for lifelong learning in medicine, as well as a community and an ethos. FOAM is continually evolving and growing rapidly, and from anarchic beginnings is increasingly attracting interest from practicing clinicians, trainees, educators, researchers and publishers alike. This article defines FOAM, details its development and considers its role, particularly in relationship to scientific journals, textbooks and medical education as a whole.

[1]  Ludwig Edelstein,et al.  The Hippocratic Oath: Text, Translation and Interpretation , 1996 .

[2]  R. Platt,et al.  Targeted versus universal decolonization to prevent ICU infection. , 2013, The New England journal of medicine.

[3]  Further Particulars,et al.  London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine , 2007 .

[4]  A. McDonald,et al.  Effects of tranexamic acid on death, vascular occlusive events, and blood transfusion in trauma patients with significant haemorrhage (CRASH-2): a randomised, placebo-controlled trial , 2010, The Lancet.

[5]  Gunther Eysenbach,et al.  Can Tweets Predict Citations? Metrics of Social Impact Based on Twitter and Correlation with Traditional Metrics of Scientific Impact , 2011, Journal of medical Internet research.

[6]  Charles G Prober,et al.  Lecture halls without lectures--a proposal for medical education. , 2012, The New England journal of medicine.

[7]  Heidi G. Allen,et al.  Social Media Release Increases Dissemination of Original Articles in the Clinical Pain Sciences , 2013, PloS one.

[8]  S. Weingart.  Preoxygenation, reoxygenation, and delayed sequence intubation in the emergency department. , 2011, The Journal of emergency medicine.

[9]  Sarah J Mansfield,et al.  Social media and the medical profession , 2011, The Medical journal of Australia.

[10]  C. Nickson,et al.  Can social media bridge the gap between research and practice? , 2013, Critical care and resuscitation : journal of the Australasian Academy of Critical Care Medicine.

[11]  D. Altman,et al.  Inadequate post-publication review of medical research , 2010, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[12]  G. Shaw.  Breaking News: Donʼt Call It Social Media: FOAM and the Future of Medical Education , 2013 .

[13]  A. Lifshitz.  Fever: friend or foe? , 1994, Archives of medical research.

[14]  Richard Smith,et al.  Peer Review: A Flawed Process at the Heart of Science and Journals , 2006, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

[15]  N. Trueger,et al.  Individual interactive instruction: an innovative enhancement to resident education. , 2013, Annals of emergency medicine.