ECG Self Assessment for Students and Clinicians

Proficiency in electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretation is an essential skill for medical students, housestaff, and clinicians. However, current textbook and classroom instructional materials do not adequately integrate ECG interpretation into specific contexts where waveform findings must be correlated with other clinical data.

Harvard Medical School has produced this unique web-based tutorial. Makes a change from the traditional lecture format!

MJM Wardrounds

Useful set of podcasts on everything from important topics like pulmonary embolism to the arcane (vipers and ACE inhibitors), and lots more in between. Spoken in Queen's English, which makes a nice change from all that twangy American you find all over U tube!

Listen to the Lancet

Audio summaries feature Lancet editorial staff discussing highlights from the week's issue, and usually include at least one interview with the author of a key paper. The Lancet also produces monthly audio summaries for The Lancet Infectious Diseases and The Lancet Neurology.

Listen to The Lancet here or subscribe to the RSS feed via your podcast aggregator.

McGill University Virtual Stethoscope

This site provides a virtual stethoscope interface for auscultating normal and abnormal cardiac and respiratory sounds as well as other material related to auscultation and cardiac and pulmonary physiology and pathophysiology.

Useful for medical students from year 1 onwards.

Can You Tell Crackles From Wheezes?

The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health's Department of Family Medicine has developed an interactive web-based learning center designed to teach medical students the fundamental principles of physical examination.

Practice taking blood pressure, listen to breath sounds, do a fundoscopic examination, or if you are still a freshman, review cardiac physiology.

Learn Dermatology the Easy Way

This site contains colour pictures and a short accompanying description. Although this is a relatively small collection, there is enough material here for a quick revision course on common and not-so-common dermatological conditions: http://medicine.ucsd.edu/clinicalimg/skin.html

Free Online Medical Ethics Course

A new free online course in medical ethics has been launched by the World Medical Association in cooperation with the Norwegian Medical Association. See http://lupin-nma.net/index.cfm?m=2&s=1&kursid=143&file=kurs/K143/intro.cfm for free access. A diploma is provided to all those completing the course.

Spotting the Sick Child

Children have many minor illnesses as they grow up and it can be hard to tell what is wrong with them. They need a different approach from adults and many health professionals are anxious about assessing children. This comprehensive interactive DVD is designed to help health care professionals spot children with serious illness.
Authored by: Dr Ffion Davies, MRCPCH, FFAEM. Consultant in Emergency Medicine
Presented by Dr Ffion Davies, Dr Mark Porter, Prof Tim Coats, Dr David Whittington, Dr John Criddle and Dr Malik Ramadhan.
Not free but a very reasonable price: http://www.ocbmedia.com/product-42-SpottingtheSickChild.html

Learning Statistics Online

Like it or not, statistics forms an essential part of the medical literature. As competition for training jobs gets harder it is becoming essential to have publications in your curriculum vitae. A basic understanding of statistics is vital for deciding the right research methods and analysing results.

This brief article by Munier Hossain summarises a few excellent free online resources to teach yourselves statistics: http://careerfocus.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/335/7621/119. Learn and enjoy!

Attention Year 3 Students: Clinical Examination Videos

St. George's Hospital Medical School in London has produced a number of very good videos outlining basic clinical examination.
Cardiovascular System: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp5m2tXHDmA&mode=related&search
Respiratory System: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWGzi5h2UR8&mode=related&search
Abdominal Examination: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AktNxbiTO0I&mode=related&search
Thyroid Gland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EnLqNaRPZM&mode=related&search
Hope you find these useful.

So, Why Do You Want to be a Doctor?

I'm sure you have thought about this, long and hard. Read: http://student.bmj.com/issues/07/09/life/310.php
What are YOUR reasons? Have they changed since you started medical school?

To Be a Medical Student Today

Check out this article: http://student.bmj.com/issues/07/09/editorials/298.php
What has it been like for you so far? What advice do you have for incoming pre-clinical/clinical students?
Post your answers here