Using Online Cases for A Medical Training Program

First of all, the cases shared here are from the wonderful resource at the University of Pittsburgh - Institute to Enhance Palliative Care (Bob Arnold, David Barnard).

One potential way to add case conferences to your fellowship program is to have your fellows post comments online about the cases. If the fellowship director reads the cases, comments and keeps up to date on the comments (via email notification), you now have a case conference series with documented involvement (the comments) without much production and effort. If you already have a case conference this could augment it, but by no means should it replace it.

As far as following your fellows comments, since the site is public, they have the option of posting openly or anonymously. I would encourage thoughtful open comments, since anonymous can allow civility to be checked at the door occasionally, but I understand the issues of liability for words as a physician when posted online. So if you really wanted your fellows to participate but they (or you) wanted them to stay semi-anonymous, have them pick a screen name that only you know, so you can track their comments to give credit for the participation. Now you should all know that nothing is truly anonymous on the internet, so they should still choose their words carefully.

If you decide to use this as part of your program, please email me christian@pallimed.org and let me know, or post it in the comments on this thread.