Osler Medicine Survival Guide: A pocket-sized mentor

Point-of-care mobile app for housestaff, developed by Johns Hopkins.

OSLER MEDICINE SURVIVAL GUIDE

Early career-physicians face myriad challenges, long hours, stressful work environments and the potentially grave consequences of their decisions to name but a few. But one of the greatest obstacles to their success is simply knowing what to do, in real time, for the patient that’s right in front of them. Despite the years of training that a young physician will have undergone prior to that moment, the ever-expanding body of medical knowledge has led to enormously complex diagnoses and treatment options Grappling with that reality can be a dizzying experience.

In order to address this issue, the senior medical residents of the Osler Residency Training Program at the Johns Hopkins Hospital began to compile the knowledge and experience they had acquired over the course of their residency. First published in 1994, the Osler Medicine Survival Guide, contained first-hand, practical knowledge that new residents could put to immediate, effective use and most importantly, pass on to the next resident cohort. In the twenty years since its inception, the user base for the Osler Medicine Survival Guide has grown to include Hopkins’ nurse practitioners, physician assistants in addition to medical students and clinicians at other hospitals in the U.S. and abroad.

Now available for the first time as an app for Android and iOS devices, the Osler Medicine Survival Guide is organized according to:

• Clinical Field (cardiology, pulmonology, gastroenterology, etc)
• Common on-call symptoms (nausea, chest pain, shortness of breath, fever, etc)
• Procedures (arterial lines, central lines, lumbar puncture, etc)

The app also allows for Universal Index Search, giving users the ability to quickly and easily scour its archives for the bit of knowledge they need, when the need it most. Optimized for the needs of modern medicine, the Osler Medicine Survival Guide provides caregivers access to evidence-based information, written by clinicians, for clinicians, in order to offer the best care to the patient that’s in front of them.

Click here to learn more about the Osler Medicine Survival Guide.

LEARN ABOUT THE PROGRAM INNOVATORS

Sanjay Desai, MD is the Director of their Osler Medical Training Program and a specialist in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. He is an active clinician and investigator, serving as attending physician in the hospital’s medical intensive care unit, and as an Associate Professor of Medicine and Business. His research focuses on graduate medical education and on clinical outcomes in survivors of critical illness. He currently chairs the Executive Committee of a large, multi-center, randomized study of duty hour regulations in graduate medical education. Sanjay is also the Vice Chair for Education, in which he oversees all educational programs in the Johns Hopkins Department of Medicine. He has appointments in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, General Internal Medicine and the Carey School of Business.

Ted W. James, MD is a senior resident within the Internal Medicine Training program at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He has a background in computer science and has developed multiple provider-side tools for disease diagnosis and patient care. He received his medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina in 2013, and served as president of his medical school class while graduating with honors. Dr. James has spearheaded a variety of applied research projects dedicated to improving patient safety and clinical outcomes, most notably among patients with gastrointestinal and liver diseases.