MacLean Curated Resources

Recommended Resource List:

Teaching Medical Students and Family Medicine Residents in Clinical Settings

April, 2019

Cathy MacLean


Some general resources to sign up for to receive regularly

Needless to say you don’t want to get on too many list servs or email newsletter lists but these are ones I have found particularly helpful for staying up-to-date clinically. You can sign up and get regular updates through email for:

  • Tools for Practice from the Alberta College of Family Physicians website (more details below and is now also sent out through the SCFP)

  • Info POEMS from the CMA website under clinical updates (need log in and sign up; link below)

  • Institute for Healthcare Improvement – for practice improvement/quality improvement (can sign up at their website); mostly if you are interested in the practice management side of things, QI, etc.

  • AHQR – also a US site but has information of quality improvement, patient education and practice change. https://www.ahrq.gov/

  • Best Advice Guides - www.patientsmedicalhome.ca

  • Therapeutics initiative from UBC – great newsletter https://www.ti.ubc.ca

  • Centre for Effective Practice which provides resources for family medicine/primary care through a site called The Well https://thewellhealth.ca/

  • https://deprescribing.org/

For good Clinical Practice Guidelines remember the following and think critically (see Jim Dickinson’s article in CFP - http://www.cfp.ca/content/64/5/357 )

  • A new resource from SPOR research has created a large database of CPG’s – a great collection can be found at https://sporevidencealliance.ca/cpg-database/

  • Ideally you want Canadian CPG’s – through CMAJ, Can. Taskforce on Preventive Health Care, Alberta (Towards Optimal Practice)TOP http://www.topalbertadoctors.org/cpgs/ ; good UK guidelines can be found through NICE https://www.nice.org.uk/

  • CPG’s should be developed with strong family physician involvement; not specialist driven or specialty society guidelines related to primary care that have no family medicine input

  • There should be no industry involvement; look for where it might be present and the impact on the results (an example of industry involvement is in the Diabetes Guidelines)

  • The strength of the evidence should be clearly described including where it is lacking

  • There should be patient tools/aids/education materials provided that support the evidence but are written appropriately for patients (numeracy and literacy considered, etc.)

See the list of general topics with some favourites/ or most used CPG’s and those at the recommended sites.

Podcasts:

Paid

Primary Care RAP (Reviews and Perspectives)

Ercast.org by Dr. Rob Orman

EMRAP –for Emergency Medicine: Reviews and Perspectives; searchable; NOT FREE


Free Resources

Broomedocs – Dr. Casie Parker; is a rural doc in Western Australia; EBM

Keylime Podcasts from the RCPSC - Focuses on Medical Education.

Best Medicine

Skeptics guide to Emergency Medicine by Dr. Ken Milne

Dr. Kilrew Podcasts Sioux Lookout

Surgery 101 from the University of Alberta


Family Medicine – General Resources (in random order)