What and how are EM residents being taught to respond to the next disaster?

Objective: Disasters, both natural and manmade, have become commonplace and emergency physicians serve on the front line. Residency may be the only time that emergency physicians are exposed to a disaster, through training, until one happens in their department; therefore, it is critical to provide residents with appropriate and timely disaster education. The goal of this study was to assess the current status of disaster education in emergency medicine (EM) residencies in the United States.Methods: A list of disaster topics was generated by reviewing disaster literature and validated by subject matter experts. Between May and December 2016, the authors conducted a national computerized survey of the 229 US EM residencies listed by the American Osteopathic Association and the American Medical Association. It focused on the methods of instruction and amount of time devoted to each topic.Results: Of the 229 eligible residency programs, 183 (79.9 percent) completed the survey. Of those, 98.9 percent report teaching disaster management topics. Nine of 18 disaster medicine topics were taught at 60 percent of responding programs. The most common topics were emergency management principles and mass casualty triage, while the least common was hazard vulnerability analysis. The most common method of instruction was lecture (68.5 percent) and the least common methods were journal club and field exercises.Conclusions: Broad education in disaster medicine is provided in most US EM residencies. Standardization of topics is still lacking and would be beneficial to encourage comprehensive education. Addressing the educational gaps and curriculum methodology changes identified in this survey would increase curriculum standardization.

CrossFit® instructor demographics and practice trends

CrossFit® is an increasingly popular exercise modality that uses high intensity power training. The literature to date regarding CrossFit® has focused on its benefits to VO2 Max, body composition and the motivational variables of participants of CrossFit®. A computerized survey was distributed to CrossFit® instructors using Survey Monkey® (Palo Alto, CA, USA). One hundred and ninety-three CrossFit® instructors responded to the survey. Of these 86.6% (155/179) reported being a certified CrossFit® instructor with 26.7% (48/180) having a bachelor’s degree in an exercise-related field. Instructors with a CrossFit® certification have less bachelor’s (P=0.04) or master’s (P=0.0001) degrees compared to those without a CrossFit® certification, more utilization of Olympic weightlifting (P=0.03), one-on-one teaching (P=0.0001), 1-RM max on snatch (P=0.004), 1- RM on clean and jerk or hang clean (P=0.0003), kettlebell use (P=0.0001) and one-on-one training (P=0.0001). Instructors report differences in their education and differences in use of weightlifting platforms and various types of footwear. Non-certified instructors differ from CrossFit® certified instructors in regards to teaching of Olympic weightlifting and exercise programming.