UofL is First to Launch Free Open-Access Internal Medicine Education Series

  • 03/23/15

LOUISVILLE, KY — The University of Louisville (UofL) Department of Medicine has launched what is believed to be the first open-access internal medicine education online community in the United States.

LouisvilleLectures.org provides free evidenced-based medical education lectures that are available to anyone. The project was developed by resident physicians in internal medicine — physicians who have received their medical degrees but are still in training before practicing on their own. The lectures are presented by faculty from the University of Louisville School of Medicine.

The project makes internal medicine didactic lectures, grand rounds and other special lectures easily accessible to UofL residents and for the education of medical students, physicians and other medical professionals everywhere. Over 40 lectures are already online, attracting more than 1,400 subscribers from over 100 countries, with over 25,000 views.

The LouisvilleLectures.org program was developed under the leadership of Jennifer Koch, M.D., program director of UofL’s internal medicine residency program with support from Jesse Roman, M.D., chair of the Department of Medicine. Internal medicine resident physician Michael Burk, M.D. serves as the founder and managing director of the site along with a team of resident physicians including Laura Bishop, M.D., Brady Wright, M.D., Chris Migliore, M.D., Shanna Barton, M.D. and chief medical resident Ishan Mehta, M.D.

“We have faculty at the UofL School of Medicine who are extremely knowledgeable and amazing teachers. Why keep this knowledge to ourselves, when we can contribute to the international community of medical education?” Koch said. ”Our goal is to teach the world medicine.”

The effort is part of the international #FOAMed movement.  Advocates of #FOAMed seek to accelerate medical knowledge sharing.

The hashtag refers to the concept of Free Open Access “Meducation” (medical education), first promoted at the 2012 International Conference on Emergency Medicine in a lecture by Mike Cadogan, an emergency medicine physician, educator and digital media enthusiast from Australia. Frustrated by the resistance of many physicians and medical educators to the serious potential of social media, he decided to rebrand what he and others were doing online as a form of continuing education.

“We've actively managed to engage a large group of researchers and significant academics who are moving away from writing textbooks and journal articles to doing more in the online arena,” Cadogan says. “That's lending a sense of credence to what we're doing.”

“The journals are still an essential part of the culture we work in,” he allows, but medical education is starting to be influenced by the open source and open content trends on the Internet, where “you take all the simple stuff, all the basic knowledge, and make it free.”

While never intended to replace traditional medical education, #FOAMed efforts such as LouisvilleLectures.org will greatly augment the availability and access of quality medical education programs.

Featured

  • Three U.S. Universities Install Acre Security Access Control Platform

    Cloud-native physical and digital security solutions company Acre Security recently announced that it has deployed its access control platform at three major universities in the U.S., according to a news release. Acre partnered with Atrium Campus to provide coverage for more than 69,000 students at the University of Virginia (UVA), George Mason University, and Rockhurst University.

  • Photo courtesy of Spiezle Architectural Group, Inc.

    West Melbourne School for Science Completes Expansion Project

    The West Melbourne School for Science, which serves students grades PreK–6 in West Melbourne, Fla., recently completed a 12,450-square-foot elementary school expansion, according to a news release.

  • How One School Reimagined Learning Spaces—and What Others Can Learn

    When Collegedale Academy, a PreK–8 school outside Chattanooga, Tenn., needed a new elementary building, we faced the choice that many school leaders eventually confront: repair an aging facility or reimagine what learning spaces could be. Our historic elementary school held decades of memories for families, including some who had once walked its halls as children themselves. But years of wear and the need for costly repairs made it clear that investing in the old building would only patch the problems rather than solve them.

  • Elevating Campus Maintenance: How Power Wash Drones are Transforming Educational Facilities

    As today’s campuses grow larger and more architecturally complex, keeping exteriors clean, safe, and inviting has never been tougher. Facilities leaders are under constant pressure to stretch budgets, meet safety standards, and support sustainability goals—all while tackling the stubborn challenge of exterior cleaning.