Yesterday was an absolute BLAST in Chicago for SMACC US.
Literally, a blast - the show opened with a confetti cannon!
For those who don't know - SMACC stands
for Social Media and Critical Care. It's a conference put on by folks who are
very active in the FOAM (Free and Open Access Meducation) movement. They blog,
they podcast, and they present at conferences. The conference style is
something I've never seen before - mostly panel presentations, with various
speakers stepping forward to do a brief (15-25 minute) talk on a very focused
topic. It's something akin to TedTalks for FOAM. All questions are asked via
Twitter to a designated Twitter Moderator, and the lecture halls are FULL of
folks who are listening while using electronic devices to tweet and comment
about the topic being discussed.
- John Hinds talking about the fallout of a resuscitative thoracotomy outside of a trauma bay (inspiring the hashtag #ResusWankers).
- Scott Weingart presenting
a fairly compelling argument against protocol-driven trauma resuscitation, and
in reality ALL resuscitation/emergent medicine
- Amal Mattu presenting a humor-filled talk on how working in Emergency Medicine is tied very strongly to the Princess Bride. (Inconciveable!)
The biggest thing, though, wasn't the lectures. It was the attitude. When talking to folks while waiting in line, or over lunch, it became clear that no one viewed me as "just" a paramedic. In fact, I was simply viewed as another confernece attendees. Among other things, the confernece name badges don't have titles or post-nominal initials, at all, and that is FANTASTIC. You know what they do have? Twitter handles!
Anyway - Continue to follow #smaccUS and #EMSwolfpack for conference events as they happen, and I'll post about day II on Thursday morning.
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