Calling All Curators: A Novel Approach to Individualized Interactive Instruction

With the increasing influence of the “Free Open Access Medical Education” (FOAM or FOAMed) movement, it is critical that medical educators be engaged with FOAM in order to better inform and direct their learners, who likely regularly consume these materials. In 2012, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)/Residency Review Committee (RRC) began to permit 20% of emergency medicine (EM) residents’ didactics hours to be earned outside of weekly conference, as “Individualized Interactive Instruction” (III) credits.1 We describe a digital course in EM, “Asynchrony,” as an approach to FOAM to meet these III standards. Asynchrony is geared toward EM residents using FOAM and other online learning tools, curated by faculty into narrative, topic-specific educational modules. Each module requires residents to complete a topic assignment, participate in a discussion board, and pass a quiz to earn ACGME-approved III didactic credit; all of this is tracked and filed in an online learning management system.