Dear readers,

I cannot believe that I have been writing on PEMBlog for an entire decade now. I began this site as a way to share focused educational content for people take care of ill and injured children in an Emergency Department setting. And that’s still the goal. Over the last ten years the #FOAM (Free Open Access Medical Education) world has grown quite a bit. Sites have come and gone – And many have flourished. It is also increasingly difficult for individual writers to maintain their sites. And here I am. A friend and mentee told me that my site (and podcast) are like the great neighborhood restaurant that is still in business in the now trendy part of town. The hours might be a little bit odd, and the place isn’t as flashy as the new gastropub down the block, but (I hope) that your (educational) meal is always fulfilling at the right price (still free without ads!) with great customer service.

My initial goal with this blog was to help impart knowledge before you saw a kid with the problem at hand – or to enrich your knowledge so that you truly understand “why we do what we do.” I think I’m still doing that. Along the way I’ve been able to mentor dozens of trainees and colleagues in the creation of what we now call digital scholarship. In fact, one of my most widely read posts was written by a then pediatric resident! I’ve also been fortunate enough to post content that supports the mission of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Emergency Medicine, as well as PECARN, the annual Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellows Conference, the EMSC Innovation and Improvement Center and a whole lot more. This site originally spun off of the O.G. PEMTweets Blog which was launched as a part of a Twitter trivia contest administered to residents at Cincinnati Children’s (Alison Delgado won by the way). I posted questions and the first to reply got points. I then included a link to the blog with content that shared additional educational material for the question. Yes, this seems quaint and clunky – but I had to start somewhere. Around that time I became aware of the growing FOAMed movement, and decided in August 2012 to move the site to a self-hosted WordPress site. Just like I did with video editing back in med school I had to teach myself how to build a website from scratch. I think it’s worked out OK thus far. I am also fortunate that my Division of Emergency Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s supported my vision to deliver asynchronous online educational content to you all. That this has become a major part of my career is surprising and serendipitous. I am so glad that so many have enjoyed the site – as well as provided feedback, corrections (thanks Indi), and heartfelt words of encouragement.

Some PEMBlog stats for the past 10 years (August 2012 to August 2022):

And yes, at one point, I don’t know, maybe five or six years ago I had thought that a decade would be a nice stopping point. But I’m having too much fun, so you all get more PEMBlog, ok? And seriously, thanks for reading. I’m so glad that I’ve been able to teach and connect with you all over the past decade. I appreciate every click, every share and every word of encouragement.

Sincerely,

Brad