EMIG Ideas???

[Hard24Get]

Hey, I will be a incoming co-chair for EMIG and am looking for suggestions for activities.

I think our goals should include educating students about EM (as a potential career choice and also why it is not a nursing job ), helping students who are already planning to apply to optimize their chances, and of course to have some fun.

Last year, we just shared in on the resident's journal club, visited the hyperbaric chamber, and had the local PD talk about applying to residency and choosing electives. We are not exactly the most active group, but this shall be a new era!

Please chime in with stuff your groups have done or you think would be cool to do.

Thanks!

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[EctopicFetus]

Procedure labs. Intubation (led by an attending or upper level resident), suture clinic, have a person talk about what its like in the ED, what life is like working the screwy hours in the ED.

Have the local PD discuss the application process and how competetive it is and how to maximize your chances before and during the application season.

 

[Flopotomist]

Hey OP... I am in a similar situation (co-pres of our EMIG). Last year we did chest tube placement clinic, intubation clinic using the cadavers that the first years were dissecting.

We also did suture clinic, and coordinated with another club that does high school mentoring to teach some basic first aid type things to the high schoolers.

Oh - and we have organized ED shadowing shifts.

This year We are trying to coordinate for some EMS ride-alongs.

Looking forward to seeing what other clubs are doing!

 

[Hard24Get]

Hey OP... I am in a similar situation (co-pres of our EMIG). Last year we did chest tube placement clinic, intubation clinic using the cadavers that the first years were dissecting.

We also did suture clinic, and coordinated with another club that does high school mentoring to teach some basic first aid type things to the high schoolers.

Oh - and we have organized ED shadowing shifts.

This year We are trying to coordinate for some EMS ride-alongs.

Looking forward to seeing what other clubs are doing!

Somehow I thought you were a med student. I like the ideas of the procedure clinic, though I am loathe to return to anatomy lab . Will see if someone else wants to do that.

My EM200 director told me that we can't do ride-alongs in the state of PA unless you are a MD

Not sure if you went to the medical student symposium at SAEM, but Dr. Hern gave a very inspirational talk about careers in EM that made me feel like starting a monthly EM careers lunch seminar series. I want to kick it off with a presentation like Dr. Hern's so maybe I will email him for it and get one of our faculty to present it. I plan to include the hyperbaric chamber talk and tour that we had last year, but there will also be a toxicologist, a basic researcher, we have a EMS director where I am, pediatrics, sports, etc - should be nice!

I was also thinking to throw in some general stuff to initially attract the masses, like "personality and medical specialties" and "resident sleep schedules: call vs shift work".

We had also talked briefly about helping to sponsor a one-day "wilderness medicine" course - have you heard of this? I am looking for more info. I have also read about this SAEM EMIG grant and am hoping to apply for it.

I like your public service efforts with the high-schoolers. Maybe we could visit prisons and soup kitchens to get an idea of where our patients are coming from

One of our residents also approached us about forming a resident-EM applicant mentor program to help with applications and personal statements etc.
Let's brainstorm!

 

[psychbender]

Last year, we did monthly student-led procedure lectures/labs in the Spring. Students who were familiar with the procedures (lots of medics in our class) did the research and put together a lecture presentation, then led a lab session covering their technique. Once we were out of Anatomy lab, we opened the lab up to local EMS. We picked out bodies with interesting pathology, and showed the EMTs and medics something they don't normally get to see, and explain why they do things the way they do (landmarks for surgical airways, why holding traction for femurs is so hard, cardiac anatomy, etc). Fall through early Spring was then covered with monthly guest lectures from physicians in the area that we knew. We had a Trauma Surgeon (and state EMS OMD) present on the kinematics of trauma, an Anesthesiologist on airway management, an Emergency Physician on environmental emergencies, etc. Most of these lectures we co-hosted with other student organizations to increase attendance, and to split costs. This lecture series culminated with a Saturday class on 12-lead interpretation by Bob Page (if you ever get a chance to go to one of his classes, do so...he is awesome). We also had the PD of a nearby program give us a talk about his program, careers in EM in general, and how to apply to a residency. We have someone coordinating shadowing in the EDs, and several of us are still active in EMS, so have an open invitation to anyone who wants to ride along. I wanted to bring a bunch of nurses from the EDs in and give a "How not to f-up on your EM month" talk, but that fell through.

 

[quideam]

Yup, i pretty much second everything that's already been said. I ran our EMIG when i was a first and second year, and we organized as many talks and worskshops as we could manage. As a fourth year, looking back, I think the most important things for an EMIG to do are to (1) have some talks/meetings that discuss what EM actually IS (lots of people just aren't exposed to it before or during the first two years of med school), (2) various career possibilities within EM, (3) practical skill labs - learning how to place a chest tube is interesting, but realistically, you're probably not going to do that until residency... more useful would be suturing, EKG lead placement, IVs, venupuncture, etc - stuff that you'll do as a med student but aren't necessarily taught about before 3rd year begins.

Other than that, I think our most popular talks were on wilderness medicine and international opportunities - tons of people showed up, even if they weren't interested in EM in particular.

Oh, and btw, we also tried setting up ambulance ride-alongs, but were also shot down... too bad, a lot of people were interested. Hopefully when we're attendings we'll be able to make it work for the med students .

Good luck!

Quid

 

[Emergency!]

We had also talked briefly about helping to sponsor a one-day "wilderness medicine" course - have you heard of this? I am looking for more info. I have also read about this SAEM EMIG grant and am hoping to apply for it.

Just FYI - the deadline to apply for the EMIG grant is August 1, according to the EMRA e-newsletter I got yesterday. I don't think the application is very involved, but if you plan on submitting one, you might want to look into that sooner rather than later.

 

[hyperbaric]

EMRA EMIG Toolbox (http://www.emra.org/Index.cfm?FuseAction=Page&PageID=1000908)

 

[Hard24Get]

Just FYI - the deadline to apply for the EMIG grant is August 1, according to the EMRA e-newsletter I got yesterday. I don't think the application is very involved, but if you plan on submitting one, you might want to look into that sooner rather than later.

Yeah, I got my idea from that EMRA email. Unfortunately, the link to the application is not working, so I have to wait for them to email back an app. Maybe this will mean less competition

Other than that, I think our most popular talks were on wilderness medicine and international opportunities - tons of people showed up, even if they weren't interested in EM in particular.

Oh, and btw, we also tried setting up ambulance ride-alongs, but were also shot down... too bad, a lot of people were interested. Hopefully when we're attendings we'll be able to make it work for the med students .

I can't wait to do the wilderness lecture - there has to be a way we can do a one day course in it in the Poconos!

The ambulance problem really sucks. Maybe I can get a paramedic to come and show episodes of that ambulance show on DiscoveryHealth.

EMRA EMIG Toolbox (http://www.emra.org/Index.cfm?FuseAc...PageID=1000908)

Thanks, this is a nice resource and an important one to post on this thread, but a bit lacking on the activity ideas. So let's think outside of the (tool)box.

Thanks guys, I am getting all sorts of ideas - please keep it coming!

 

[DeLaughterDO]

Things we did:

Had EMS bring an ambulance and have a "walk through" tour with the medics explaining things along the way. Fun to have a look around. We also had ride-alongs available for those interested throughout the year.

Had the local Life-flight company bring a chopper to the school and do a similar thing as the ambulance (but on separate day). Unfortunately, we couldn't arrange life-flight ride-alongs.

EM shadowing opportunities

Had talks on different topics - trauma (local trauma surgeon), peds (pedi-em fellow), Working in the ED and lifestyle (local EP), etc.

Yearly round-table with 4th years. Answered questions about the match, board scores, etc. Basically our own little version of SDN

Participated in local disaster drill - lots of fun if you can coordinate with local EMA office. Usually, the EMA will have 2-3 disaster drills a year. Your members can be screaming, histrionic, I-tach'ing victims for an hour or so. Also teaches how disasters are handled. Had local EMA director talk about disasters and role of EM.

Lots of procedure labs - phlebotomy/IV, splinting, EKGs, airway, etc.

It was a busy, but good year.

 

[Hawkeye Kid]

lots of good ideas. some of the things we did back in my day...

intro to EM--what is is, pros/cons, etc. this is good for early in the year, especially if you're looking to increase membership.

ED tag-alongs--if you have a residency program this will be pretty easy to set up

suture labs, etc. more advanced things can wait (chest tubes, etc)

any EM specific topics. we did trauma case presentations with a staff surgeon, child/domestic/elder abuse, tox, etc (this is best done as case presentations, i think, given the M1/M2 levels of education)

M4 match panel--good especially for M3s to hear what the recently-matched M4s experienced while applying/interviewing. we always had a PD there for this as well to give their perspective

we also tried the ambo ride along thing--liability got in the way, though. if your school has an EMS director (most programs do) ask them how much of a hassle this will be--maybe you'll be able to swing it without much problem, but they should be able to tell you (without you doing too much work, only to find out it's a pain in the butt)

we aimed for one talk/event per month. realize that a lot of these can take a fair amount of work and can get in the way of other things (studying, having a life, etc). good luck.