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/
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.
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)
Access to Dynamed – go through USask library or through CMA
Pepid can be accessed through the SK Health Authority; get off site access
Best Science Medicine podcast (from Dr. Mike Allen U of A faculty in FM)
The Centre for Effective Practice – go to THE WELL https://thewellhealth.ca/ - several excellent resources on common problems such as insomnia, headache, back pain, opioids, etc.
Tools for Practice – Alberta College of Family Physicians
POEMS through the CMA/Joule (sign in required); scroll to find POEMS by Essential Evidence Plus
Canadian Family Physician journal including their video series with great intro to common procedures
PBSGL modules from the Foundation for Medical Practice; free access for residents.
Clinical Practice Guidelines from CFPC
CFP references such as for Simplified Lipid guidelines
Mike Evans videos - my favourites to use with patients especially for PSA testing
Quality Improvement in Family Medicine
University of Toronto's QI Education Page - http://www.dfcm.utoronto.ca/qi-education
Quality Book of Tools - https://qualitybookoftools.ca/
CMA Drivers Guide – on line but have to sign in to the CMA site; can be downloaded
Choosing Wisely Canada – Resources/toolkits/webinars
Stewart M, Brown J.B., Weston W.W., McWhinney I.R., McWilliam C.L., Freeman T.R. Patient-Centered Medicine: Transforming the Clinical Method. 2014 Jan. 3rd Edition, Radcliffe Publishing Ltd, Oxford UK. All residents need to be exposed to this text early in their residency and have practiced this extensively so it is an automatic practice by the time they do the SOO (simulated office oral) of their CCFP exam.