In the spirit of flipping the classroom, there will be some changes coming to the Evolution Medicine blog. I will soon be posting short podcasts and videos that will be designed for students of the evolutionary medicine course. These podcasts are also aimed at emergency physicians (like myself) and trainees in a variety of specialties.

Visitors to this site will also see a greater emphasis on the practical application of evolutionary medicine to patient care and clinical research. I am inspired to make these changes by a growing movement of free open access medical education, which goes by the acronym FOAM.

Several leaders in the FOAM movement recently held a meeting, the SMACC conference, in Sydney Australia, that included a session on adaptation in critical care.

Now, unfortunately, I missed this conference and have not heard these talks, but I will post my thoughts about these topics (and already have) over the next few weeks.

This is an exciting development, reinforcing the idea that evolutionary concepts, especially adaptation, can inform medical practice and research. I agree with this emphasis and the discussion that these ideas generate. Check back soon for additional links to the websites that feature these speakers.

For now, here are a couple examples: check out Life in the Fast Lane by Dr. Chris Nickson, an intensivist based in Melbourne Australia. Also visit Rob Mac Sweeney’s Critical Care Reviews

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Joe Alcock

Emergency Physician, Educator, Researcher, interested in the microbiome, evolution, and medicine