Almost every week I stumble upon a new medical website but very few of them ever reach my bookmark collection. In a shower of information (over)flow I only keep new links if the website can dramatically affect my medical learning progress. http://www.hqmeded.com is definitely one of these.I haven't found an "about" section so I am not sure who exactly is behind this or what their goal is but the emergency department of Hennepin County Medical Center (Minneapolis) has their signature in the footer. It's a emergency physician made site for emergency physicians - it just cannot go wrong!
HqMedEd delivers various videos from a broad range of topics, mostly pertaining to the use of ultrasound for making the diagnosis down in the ED. Spotting a mitralis stenosis on parasternal long view to diagnose the 31 year old pregnant female coming in with acute heart failure is pretty awesome. Seeing thrombosis in the bifurcation of a lady with limb pain is a bulls eye. It's the age of the ultrasound and this site is *the* candy store for EPs interested in the topic. You might ask what is special with HqMedEd's videos since there already are lots of video sites out there... well these are special indeed. Not only are they free but also they are ultra short (3-4minutes), yet concise and informative. The authors have obviously trained their performance since they are very straight to the point and non-hesitating which is a rarity in the world of online video lectures.
Their videos are mostly stored on Youtube so I went to their channel there since it's a little easire to browse
http://www.youtube.com/user/hqmeded
There I found also some very interesting (a little longer but still compact) learning modules, for example a tutorial on the complete FAST scan and the procedure of cricothyroidectomy.
If we go back to the website there is a "lectures" tab which - just as implied - lists a very impressive collection of video lectures like acid-base disorders, cardiovascular drug toxicity- and treatments to mention a few. The videos are set up so that you see both the slides and the speaker (a mini USC essentials format) and so makes you feel much more as sitting right there in the auditorium.
The link collection tab cannot go unmentioned, they have very good links to ultrasound websites amongst others, many of which I hadn't seen before.
All in all, a most impressive and amazing website containing videos with short and compact yet highly yielding learning material. I am very glad to see more video sites for emergency physicians, it is completely changing our medical education (meducation!) landscape and I think we will see more and more of this development in the future.
