The First10EM monthly wrap up is a place for me to share updates about the website, about my academic life, and also interesting content, such as books, podcasts, and other FOAMed, that I have encountered in the prior month. Obviously the format means the focus is mostly on content I have found, but I hope the community gets engaged in the comments, sharing books, podcasts, FOAMed, or anything else that you think would benefit or delight the broader emergency medicine community.
It has been a slow couple of months for First10EM, as I have had a ton of work to do on other stuff (like conferences and other podcasts), and life is just busy. There should be a lot more coming through the spring, although as I went into in far too much detail in this post, I am reflecting deeply on the future of First10EM.
I have quit Twitter forever, which is something I think everyone in the FOAMed community should do, considering the political leanings demonstrated by its owner. That means that if you rely on social media to hear about new posts, you will need to follow me somewhere else:
Blueksky: https://bsky.app/profile/first10em.bsky.social
Instagram: https://instagram.com/first10em/
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@First10EM
Facebook: https://facebook.com/first10EM
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@first10em
Quitting Twitter also means I am losing about 15% of the traffic that used to come to First10EM. If you enjoy the content, now would be a wonderful time to share it with colleagues or on social media. Thanks!!
There have been a couple new YouTube Videos:
Status Epilepticus: A less shaky approach
Laceration evidence part 2: Sterile gloves
Big practice change? How fast do you correct hyponatremia?
And of course, the BroomeDocs podcast
What I am reading
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt was one of the best novels I have read in a while (although I could say that about a few of this books listed here). A simple book about relationships and family, but with a highly intelligent octopus as a central character. Delightful.
James by Percival Everett was also absolutely fantastic. It is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn through the eyes of Jim. It is both funny and devastating. It makes you consider the rich world that exists when you really pause to consider other people’s perspectives. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Jacques the Fatalist and His Master is a classic that grapples with issues of free will, pokes fun at contemporaries of the time (most of which went over my head), and was controversial enough to once be banned by the Catholic Church. A book from 250 years ago will never be as easy a read as modern fiction, but for enjoyers of philosophy, this is a great novel.
The WIll to Battle and Perhaps the Stars are books 3 and 4 of the Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer. The series is incredible, mixing great storytelling with some truly academic explorations of philosophy and politics. I really enjoyed the first 2 novels, but there were times that reading felt a little more like work than pleasure (they are very long, and at times quite verbose), but the final 2 books of this series are truly worth the effort.
I liked, but definitely didn’t love, The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune. An orphanage for children with magical powers definitely works as a premise for me, and it tries to tackle some important topics, but it felt perhaps a little simplistic. (Maybe I am asking a lot for a novel that is probably classified as YA?) I liked it enough to read the second book, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, but my guess is that by the time the third is published, I won’t bother.
The ministry of time by Kaliane Bradley is another book where I really loved the premise, but would classify it as more of a fun read than a great novel. But not everything needs to be a great novel, and I think this book is likely to be enjoyed by everyone who picks it up.
The Nightingale by Hannah Kristin was another truly fantastic novel, following the lives of two sisters in occupied France during world war II. In fact, there were days when the novel was too good, drawing me into such an emotional state that I had a hard time falling asleep afterwards. (Perhaps the book hits too close to home when raising a kid in times when the world’s superpowers are slipping again towards fascism?)
Interesting media
I can’t find the original source, but this is apparently what the skin looks like, using a scanning electron microscope, after being punctured by a needle:
I find it fascinating. I would love to see images like this of all sorts of lacerations. I feel like there are insights available that could potentially influence laceration management.
I definitely spend too much time on YouTube, but so long as creators continue to put out amazing content that is nerdy, somewhat scientific, and highly entertaining, I will spend tons of time on the platform. (Yes, I also waste a lot of time on content that can’t be justified by being “scientific”.) Either way, there will also be a lot of YouTube videos in this section.
I have always loved watching slow motion content. The insights into how the world works when things are slowed down dramatically are fascinating. Although I am not a huge fan of guns, they certainly create fast motion that is best viewed in slomo. This video from the Slow Mo Guys was great highly entertaining, but also I think justified, as watching collisions slowed down dramatically provides insights into the way the world works that aren’t accessible otherwise:
This guy got a broken scanning electron microscope for free, and managed to repair it himself. Definitely not a video for everyone, but there is something about the troubleshooting and ultimate payoff that had me hooked:
Have you ever considered the relative size of a raindrop to a mosquito? Imagine being outside and being pelted by bowling balls, or worse? And yet insects face this all the time. How do they fly? How do they survive? This video delves into the fascinating details.
This YouTube short on the Curt Herzstark mechanical calculator is cool.
I really like that YouTube lets me see interesting science that I couldn’t possibly see otherwise. For example, do you know what happens to a floating styrofoam boat when the liquid carbon dioxide it is floating on is pressurized to 73 atmospheres and becomes supercritical?
I love ingenuity. For some reason, I also love watching how things are made. Thus, this video which reviews the process for manufacturing a device that a dad invented to be able to bring his wheelchair bound daughter on hikes just hit perfectly.
My Favourite FOAMed this month
It seems like a topic too simple for discussion, but having an approach to seeing the standard (non-resuscitation) emergency department patient is so important.
The systolic blood pressure has always felt like a more natural focus of resuscitation, but Simon Carley discusses why the diastolic might be a more important resuscitation target.
This is a nice review of acute pancreatitis from the EMOttawa blog that makes a few points that might be practicing changing for a lot of people.
Quotes or Thoughts
A student once approached the Buddha and asked him for a straight answer on some of the unanswerable questions that were challenging him about life.
The Buddha replied:
“Imagine someone is struck by a poisoned arrow. A doctor is brought to his side to remove the arrow and treat the wound, but the man stops him.
’Not so fast! First, I want to know who shot me. What town or village does he come from? I would also like to know what kind of wood his bow was made out of. Also, was it a crossbow or a longbow?’
Clearly that man would die and his questions would remain unanswered. Like the man in the story, we occasionally get shot with the poisoned arrows of suffering and ignorance. But ruminating too much on the nature of that suffering and ignorance is unlikely to help us with that.”
I like the concept of the “time billionaire”. People get really focused on money, and can lose sight of their most precious asset: time. At 20 years old you have about 2 billion seconds left in your life. At 50 you (if you are lucky) you might have 1 billion seconds left. Focus on your most precious resource, and if you are lucky enough to still be a time billionaire, take advantage of your billions. Spend them wisely.
“We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.” – Seneca
