This is a summary of some of the key evidence based medicine resources that I use to help me keep up with the most current medical literature.

Emergency Medicine Resources

Podcasts

The Skeptics Guide to Emergency Medicine: http://thesgem.com/

• The very Canadian Ken Milne provides weekly podcasts that critically appraise emergency medicine papers using the BEEM (best evidence in emergency medicine) framework. Ken does an excellent job in cutting the knowledge translation window down to less than a year (ie, you hear about the important papers quicker.)

Journal Jam by Emergency Medicine Cases: http://emergencymedicinecases.com/category/podcast/journal-jam/

• I may be biased, because I participate in this project but I absolutely love the idea. At journal clubs we get so used to ripping papers apart that we sometimes overlook the reasons that studies were done the way they were. Journal Jam combines interviews with the lead authors of important emergency medicine papers and expert critical appraisal, helping to provide a human face to research and providing insight into the research process. Update: The format has changed from author interviews to deep dives into topics, but the EBM quality has gotten even better.

Emergency Medical Abstracts: https://www.emrap.org/

• Despite the fact that this is a paid program, it has to be on the list. This is where emergency medicine critical appraisal and knowledge translation started – before I was even born. It is a monthly audio program that will review 30 different papers and provide you with critical appraisal from world experts (and you will hear Jerry Hoffman rant about various things as well.) The good news: if you are a resident, this is free with a EMRA/ACEP membership. Update: Now part of the incredible EM:RAP podcast family. 

R.E.B.E.L. Cast: http://rebelem.com/rebel-cast/

• The podcast is run by Salim Rezaie and he is joined by Matt Astin and Anand Swaminathan every month to review a couple of the important papers just released.

The Washington University Emergency Medicine Journal Club: http://emjclub.com/

• A podcast that quickly summarizes and appraises the papers reviewed at the monthly journal club at Washington University.

RCEM FOAMed Netowork: http://www.rcemfoamed.co.uk/

• As part of a larger FOAMed effort, every month there is a podcast by that will discuss 3 or 4 new, interesting emergency medicine articles.

The Resus Room: http://theresusroom.co.uk/

• Another UK based FOAM site that puts out a monthly podcast covering a handful of new and intersting emerency medicine papers.

BroomeDocs Podcast: http://broomedocs.com/category/podcast/

• Casey and I chat about the articles included in my Articles of the Month. Not high end critical appraisal. Just two community docs chatting about how evidence impacts our practice.

Blogs and websites

Articles of the month on First10EM: http://first10em.com/category/articles-of-the-month/

• • Of course I have to plug myself. Every month I provide a brief summary and critical appraisal of my favorite 20 or so medical papers from the preceding month.

• The articles of the month now also has an audio version, thanks to the extremely talented Casey Parker of http://broomedocs.com/. Casey and I get together each month to chat about the papers that I included in the written blog post.

The Bottom line: http://www.thebottomline.org.uk/

• This is an amazing resource from Steve Mathieu that provides a full synopsis of important critical care papers and of course an eponymous bottom line.

EM Lyceum: http://emlyceum.com/

• A collection of doctors out of Bellevue Hospital in New York City who post a series of questions on a topic, and then come up with excellent evidence based answers to those questions. Update: This resource now appears to be date, but I leave it here because the old content is excellent.

Emergency Medicine Literature of Note: http://www.emlitofnote.com/

• Ryan Radecki is an brilliant skeptic who does an excellent job of pointing out when the conclusions of a paper are not quite supported by the data within.

EM Nerd: http://emnerd.com/

• Rory Spiegel is one of the smartest people I have met, and through this blog you get access to that intelligence with in-depth critical appraisals of some of the most important emergency medicine papers published.

Research and Reviews in the Fastline: http://lifeinthefastlane.com/education/research-and-reviews/

• This is a weekly collection recommended articles from a number of respected doctors from around the world, plus one imposter (me).

Critical Care Reviews: http://www.criticalcarereviews.com/

• Another excellent resource from Rob MacSweeney – you can sign up for his weekly email that lists all the important critical care literature that was published that week.

Journal Feed: https://journalfeed.org/

• Clay Smith is one of the original FOAM contributors. This is his new project. Every week day you will get the abstract and a “spoon feed” summary of an important emergency medicine article. I don’t always agree with Clay’s interpretation of the literature, but this is an incredible resource for hearing about new papers as they are published.

Core EM Journal Reviews: https://coreem.net/journal-reviews/

• Regular updates on important papers from Anand Swaminathan and the rest of the excellent Core EM team.

Don’t forget the Bubbles – Monthly Bubble Wrap: https://dontforgetthebubbles.com/category/bubble-wrap/

• If you are looking for pediatric evidence, this is the place to go. Multiple pediatric experts each choose one article and provide us with a summary.

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Family and General Medicine Resources

Podcasts

Best Science (BS) Medicine Podcast: http://therapeuticseducation.org/bs-medicine-podcast

• This was the first podcast I ever listened to and it made me sound like an evidence based star during residency. New episodes are free, but there is now a huge archive of topics that you will have to pay a very small price to get access to – and it is certainly worth it. James McCormack and Michael Allan dive into the literature on all topics in family medicine. Listening can only make your practice better.

Questioning Medicine: http://www.questioningmedicine.com/

• Joe Weatherly and Andrew Buelt do an excellent job “questioning medicine” – exploring current medical research to determine why it is that we do what we do.

Blogs and websites

the NNT: http://www.thennt.com/

• A brilliant website that focuses on patient important outcomes when reviewing the evidence and providing easy to use summaries in the form of an NNT and an EBM traffic light.

Best BETs: http://www.bestbets.org/

• An excellent collection of ‘best evidence topics’.  They perform structured literature reviews of very specific clinical questions and provide concise bottom lines for clinical use.

Tools for practice: https://www.acfp.ca/tools-for-practice/

• This is a group based in Alberta that does peer-reviewed critical appraisal of important topics and then distills the results down into an easily readable, short summary.

InfoPOEMs: http://www.essentialevidenceplus.com/content/poems

• Sign up to get a daily email that quickly summarizes “patient oriented evidence that matters”.

Accessing the core literature

Although all of the resources above are excellent, it is a good idea to occasionally read some papers yourself. There are a number of good options for ensuring that you hear about relevant literature as it is published:

Custom Medline searches:

• • You can sign up for an account (for free) and have Medline e-mail you whenever new studies that interest you are published.

• • You could use this to search for a specific journal, for example “CJEM”, and have medline e-mail you with the full abstract list every time a new issue is published.

• You can also use this to get abstracts about specific topics. For example, if you saved a search that included the terms “sepsis”, “emergency medicine”, and “RCT”, you would get an e-mail every time a new emergency medicine sepsis RCT was published

Email abstracts

• Whatever your specialty, there are always a few key journals that contain the majority of important publications. On each journal’s website, there is a way to sign up to get an e-mail with all the abstracts each time an issue is published.

RSS feeds

• Instead of e-mail abstracts (I hate having a ton of unread e-mail) I use Feedly as an RSS aggregator and have the abstracts of all the journals I care about collected in the app.

Read by QXMD

• Another option for gathering newly published abstracts is the Read app. The  best part of this app is that if you have access to journals through your university, you can log in using the app once and always have access to the full versions of articles for free.