Ethics in the ER -- New Selective Offered Winter Quarter 2009

Dr. Stephanie Cooper, an EM physician at Harborview, and Thomas Robey, a 4th year medical student, will lead a new course on ethics in the emergency department.

Here is a link to their blog with information about the class and course registration.

_______ MD, FACEP, FAAEM, ????

Have you ever wondered what the FACEP and FAAEM meant after many EM physicians' names?

FACEP = "Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians"
FAAEM = "Fellow of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine"

The College (ACEP) and Academy (AAEM) are two of the major emergency medicine professional organizations. Although you may think they are the same, there are some differences in their ideas for emergency medicine (I'm still learning about the differences so I'm not much help yet). It seems that physicians can join either or both organizations. The fellow part means that they have met certain professional, ethical, and educational requirements for that status, specifically EM board certified.

You can check them out and learn about student membership information below. AAEM-RSA offers a FREE one-year trial membership from medical students, too. Membership comes with journal subscriptions, residency books, and spam mail. I've been a member of both organizations for a year now and found that the journals and magazines are really interesting and the residency books are very useful, especially EMRA Survival Guide.

AAEM - Resident and Student Association (AAEM-RSA)

ACEP - Residents and Medical Students (EMRA)

*At Noel's request, check out EMRA's Facebook group, too! Here's a link to Noel's early post about this.

Stayin' Alive & Savin' Lives

WebMD - CPR Gives "Stayin' Alive" New Life

I read about this a few days ago and meant to pass it along. In short, the Bee Gees' disco hit "Stayin' Alive" has a beat of 103 beats/min which researchers hope will help people remember to do chest compressions at the correct rate (100 beats/min). Pretty cool!

In case any of you can't remember this classic, here's a link to their radical video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdv8Qi_k-I4

Welcome to the UW Emergency Medicine Interest Group (EMIG)

Thanks to all those who stopped by the EMIG table at the interest group fair this morning! It was a huge success! We're excited to see all the people interested in EM. For those of you wondering about "official" membership in EMIG, if you signed up for the mailing list, consider yourself an "official" member. Feel free to e-mail the EMIG leadership (uwemig@u.washington.edu) if you have any questions about EM or if you have any suggestions on activities, blog posts, etc.