Medical Jellybeans with @TheTopEnd
Jellybeans. Conversations with Care. The Jellybeans started here and are now also hosted on lifeinthefastlane.com (The Original) & www.IntensiveCareNetwork.com This is the complete collection. Sometimes containing more controversial offerings.
Where do you start something like SMACC?
Heres another story.
Once upon a time on a idyllic tropical island there came in to the world the lovechild of Drs Harris, Nickson and Flower. Now theres a frightening image. This is clearly not bedtime story material so I think I will try a different tack.
Before there was ever a Jellybean there was a PHARM. Minh Le Cong had begun his relentless march into the world wide web. (I mean relentless; he is up to Podcast 93!) Some time ago, in September 2012, the Bedside Critical Care (BCC) conference was held on Daydream Island. Now Bedside Critical Care is an interesting thing in itself. It’s a model of face to face medical education that is rather different and much more family friendly. Its very much a product of the Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH) ICU. The first of these conferences was at Kingscliff in New South Wales in 2010. I was there. It was very good.
Essentially we started at 7 am stopped at 10 am and then spent the middle of the day with our families and then did another 3 hours in the afternoon. My son still talks about it! While I am told our surgical colleagues have conferences like all the time, this it was all new to me! The original organising team included Roger Harris, Carole Foot and Liz Steel amongst others. It seems that RNSH had a very healthy balance of male and female intensivists. It still does; ( http://rnshicu.org/whos-who )
Roger ran with the BCC and 3 years later Oli Flower was on board and had brought in his crazy friends from http://www.intensivecarenetwork.com People like Matt McPartlin @rollcagemedic and, worse, his old chum from Darwin, Chris Nickson @precordialthump
I was going again. Minh Le Cong, with whom I work, was not going and he was jealous. He asked me to record an interview with Chris and company. I don’t think they had even met at this time, though they had tweeted the hell out of each other. Minh has an insatiable desire for recorded FOAM and he is persistent. I didn’t agree but I did think about it.
I joined twitter on the 3 day road trip down from Cairns with my kids. Secretly I felt a little dirty. I thought of Twitter as a Justin Bieber thing and lets face it; he is an idiot.
I bought a mic for $30 and steeled myself to approach these super smart guys that were producing amazing content and say; “can I record you please?”
I had never recorded anyone. I knew I didn’t like the sound of my own voice on tape. (some of you may have heard of tape but for those that have not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette) Two days were spent hanging out with the extended family of FOAM and better still the families of the FOAM guys. My kids were playing with their kids, the partners of all these people are more interesting that they themselves are, I had never been to a medical thing before where I didnt want to get away ASAP. I liked these women and men of FOAM.
This was the conference where they announced the plan to do a crazy conference called FOACC. No it was FOACCEM. Or was it; Social Media and Critical Care. SMACC
Where do you start? Start with people you like. It worked for SMACC and it kind of worked for me.
I got over my groupie hang ups, they were all ridiculously friendly and then the next thing you know….
(I didn’t record that. I wish! Was it only me that wanted to be Kim Deal?)
My first ever attempt to record someone, is below. I’m amazed. I’m amazed that it went anywhere.
Press here for the 25 minutes of mostly gags, some good old SMACC promo and an insight into probably the fastest growing medical education movement ever.
3 comments on “Where do you start something like SMACC?”
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Medical Jellybeans with @TheTopEnd 
You are too modest Doug. You have played your fair share in the evolution of FOAM and inspired others to start podcasting; probably on the premise that if that Irish fella with the funny facial hair can produce quality, well then I can too. You are the”Ellen” of critical care podcasting.
So welcome to blogging and I can’t wait to see what you do next.
Matthew
But Ellen can dance?
I just nail my arms to my sides and have a seizure below the waist while remaining up right!
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