Integration of a Blog into an Emergency Medicine Residency Curriculum

BACKGROUND Technologies and techniques for knowledge translation are rapidly evolving and there is a need for graduate medical education (GME) curricula to keep up with these advances to reach our learners in an effective manner. Technologies such as blogs, microblogs, wikis, podcasts, and vodcasts have the potential to expand upon the current didactic models by adding dimensions and engaging learners in modalities not previously available.1 Emergency medicine (EM) has been at the forefront in adopting social media in the pursuit of knowledge and collaboration.2,3 In order to advise residencies on how to use these new technologies, the Council of EM Residency Directors (CORD) Social Media Task Force published its guidelines, best practices, and recommendations for integrating social media into EM residency programs laying the foundation for EM residency-based social media activities.4 In March 2012, “The Original Kings of County” (TOKC) blog was launched in an effort to integrate social media into the SUNY Downstate/Kings County Hospital EM Residency Program (Figure). The blog represents an early adapter of these efforts and uniquely applies them at the GME level to improve learner engagement with the EM residency curriculum.