JF: We recently covered thoracic trauma algorithms on the show, and since then, I often ask interns and medical students to guess, “What do you think Rosen’s says about routinely getting a rib series X-ray in cases of mild blunt trauma to the chest?” And they just assume that the textbooks are conservative and recommend to get that rib series. But in truth, they don’t. Rib series films are a pretty unhelpful test in most situations, and the so-called old-school textbooks are on it.

LW: That’s called pimping, my friend.

JF: I prefer to call it enhanced medical interrogation techniques. There’s no actual torture involved.

LW: Then on the other hand, there’s the misconception that podcasts and blogs are these thrown-together things that have not been researched or are presenting knowledge that is somehow inferior to what’s found in Rosenalli.

JF: What we find is quite often the opposite. The most popular FOAM resources are often quite rigorously researched. And, in fact, the bibliographies are not only thorough, the quality of the papers cited is consistently excellent.

LW: One of my favorite things is to notice the studies that are cited in Rosenalli. If you look, some of it is frankly not strong. Some borders on hilarious, as we’ve covered on the show. But of course, some of it is high quality. But then take something like SMART EM podcast—the literature cited in the bibliography is uniformly superb. Another misconception is that using FOAM is some kind of shortcut. The appeal of FOAM for many is that the products are slick, refined, entertaining, and, above all, brief (SMART EM podcast notwithstanding). I know you recently had a chance to sit and talk with Lewis Goldfrank, MD, Herbert W. Adams professor and chair of the department of emergency medicine at New York University, about FOAM versus traditional medical education, and he expressed concern over the perceived shortcut to excellence by using FOAM.

JF: Thanks for dropping Goldfrank’s name in there so I didn’t have to.

LW: No prob.

JF: But yes, he’s a methodical, deliberate, and truly intellectual person. My argument to him was that FOAM, when done correctly, is not a shortcut to learning but actually a springboard to deeper learning. It’s actually a long cut! Instead of reading a chapter on, say, ENT emergencies and being done, our hope is that they’ll listen to our show for 20 minutes and then be inspired to go read some of the chapters in Rosenalli or even some of the primary literature. Instead of one-and-done, now the learner is checking in with multiple resources and platforms.