Origins
This website is dedicated to two purposes:
- To provide tools for testing yourself on topics included in the ACEM Fellowship exam, with a growing library of questions and ideas for learning
Chapters on each domain of medical expertise (in production) - laid out in question format and designed to be used as a guide for additional learning. This means you use recall to try to answer the questions prior to reading about the topic. As time goes on I will be working on improving the content and lay out so please leave me your feedback on twitter.
As these posts are created they will contribute to a downloadable workbook (like in primary school), allowing you to work through questions in your own time.
Email newsletters will guide you to new content and also provide you with extra questions and revision tips - subscribe for this feature!
2. To blog about my experience as a new prehospital and retrieval medicine doctor (PHRM/HEMS)
This is a new job with lots of learning points. I'm hoping to provide insight into the role for anybody interested in pursuing PHRM as a career, or just wanting to learn about life as a prehospital clinician. I'm also hoping it helps me to work through events as a reflective exercise, pointing me in the right direction of personal development.
In February 2022 I started in a new job which I never imagined I could get - a Fellowship year in Prehospital and Retrieval Medicine (PHRM) as part of a HEMS team. Its a highly coveted role with local reputation for attracting highly competent Emergency Medicine trainees working towards the end of their training.
Once I got the job, I finally opened up my mind to realise all the small steps that got me here. There is not one defining moment when I decided actively that I wanted to do PHRM, but clues which I suppressed throughout my career. Suppression came from fear of not being able to succeed, always considering it to be too competitive or that I was not the right personality or nature for the job. I never had specific reasons to feel this way. I never considered any specific attribute of mine to be a hindrance to me except potentially my quiet voice, or my careful decision making before speaking, or the perception others have had about my potential for lack of assertiveness. But as most introverts know, just because we don't necessarily show all of our thoughts to others, doesn't mean we don't have any. Just because we aren't always the first to answer questions, doesn't mean we don't know the answer. And just because we run a quiet resus doesn't mean we lack confidence. But emergency medicine does require a degree of standardisation in communication, expectations of a team leader and displays of competence in order for a healthy trusting relationship amongst the team. I have worked on this every working day (or night) since I became a doctor, and changed in some respects. I carry myself in a confident way, I move quickly, I answer questions specifically and with important caveats of ifs and whens. I still have a lot of progress to make, and I still carry imposter syndrome with me everyday, each day becoming more apparent as I get closer to becoming a consultant.
In my next post I'll talk about all those little experiences that led me here to where I am now. Moments that seems irrelevant at the time, finite and futureless. They were anything but that, looking back.
Going forward this blog will be a discussion of my time working as a PHRM doctor, reflections and learning points, but most of all I'm writing to help myself notice the important moments in my career, and leave memories of those to build on and overcome my own doubts about myself.
Feel free to join me each step of the way.
Nat
