MEM-EM: Memorising Emergency Medicine A Guide to Our Learning Philosophy
Welcome to the Memorising Emergency Medicine (MEM:EM) project. We are thrilled to have you join us. This document introduces you to the core educational theories that form the foundation of our resources and our approach to helping you succeed.
The primary goal of this project is to accelerate the learning curve and decrease the knowledge translation window for trainees. MEM:EM is designed to complement official resources like RCEM learning, providing locally-mapped content that fulfils the specific requirements of the RCEM 2021 curriculum.
MEM:EM was born from the direct experience of collating and refining countless resources during training, with the aim of sharing those insights to help others on their own journey. It will be useful whether you are preparing for clinical progression, RCEM/ACEM exams, the Portfolio pathway, or if you have completed training but are looking to maintain your knowledge level with minimal time input.
To achieve this, the project is built upon a few powerful and learning theories that we will explore together.
The Core Method: A "Two-Pronged Approach" to Learning EM
Mastering the breadth and depth of Emergency Medicine (EM) is a significant challenge. It requires a specific strategy that combines structured, systematic learning with the practical, case-based learning that happens on the shop floor. We call this the "two-pronged approach."
A purely academic approach leaves knowledge inert, while a purely case-based approach leaves gaps in your foundation. True mastery in Emergency Medicine comes from weaving these two threads together—using the curriculum to build the fabric of your knowledge and using clinical experience to stitch it into practice.
Prong 1: The Linear Path of Foundational Study
The linear path involves working systematically through the core topics of the Emergency Medicine curriculum. It is the foundational, structured part of your learning journey.
Benefit: It ensures that all of the basics of the RCEM curriculum are covered comprehensively, leaving no gaps in your fundamental knowledge.
Prong 2: The Non-Linear Path of Clinical Experience
The non-linear, or asynchronous, path involves reading around cases you have seen and going back to topics as needed when a challenging case occurs. This is learning driven by your direct clinical experience. Benefit: It facilitates deeper learning by directly connecting abstract knowledge to your personal, challenging clinical encounters.
How These Two Paths Work Together
These two paths are not separate; they are complementary forces that reinforce one another. The linear path builds your knowledge base, while the non-linear path solidifies it through practical application and emotional connection.
Linear Learning Non-Linear Learning Definition: Working systematically through the core curriculum topics. Definition: Reading around cases and revisiting topics based on clinical encounters. Benefit: Ensures comprehensive coverage of foundational knowledge. Benefit: Connects knowledge to personal experience for deeper, lasting retention.
This dual approach is precisely why "stories" are so important in medicine. They help pass on crucial learning points by attaching them to memorable cases, which significantly aids knowledge retention. This cycle of systematic study and case-based application builds robust knowledge. The final step is to ensure this knowledge becomes permanent expertise through intentional, structured repetition.
Deepening Your Expertise: The "Spiral Approach"
Once you have engaged with a topic through both linear and non-linear learning, the key to mastery is repetition. The RCEM curriculum emphasizes this through what it calls the "spiral approach." This is not about simply re-reading the same material; it's about revisiting topics over time to build a more sophisticated understanding.
The Spiral approach to revising topics builds "the sophistication of knowledge, attitudes and decision making. This aids reinforcement of principles, the integration of topics, and the achievement of higher levels of competency, moving from competent to expert."
The ultimate goal of the spiral approach is to guide your development along the professional spectrum, helping you progress from being merely competent in a subject to becoming a true expert. The MEM:EM project is designed to provide you with the practical tools to put all of these theories into practice.
Putting Theory into Practice: How to Use MEM:EM Resources
The MEM:EM project has been carefully designed to combine the "two-pronged" and "spiral" approaches using a specific set of resources.
Our content is referenced to core texts, journals, and #FOAMED resources. It is edited with the help of AI to proofread and refine the language to aid clarity and brevity, then checked prior to publication by an Emergency Medicine consultant who has completed Emergency Medicine Specialty training in both Australasia (ACEM) and the UK.
Here is how you can use our tools to support each phase of your learning:
Resource Type Supported Approach How It Helps You Learn Blogs, Podcasts & Mapped Resources Linear Approach Allows you to work systematically through the RCEM curriculum topics, ensuring a complete and solid foundation of core knowledge. Deeper Dives & Case Discussions Non-Linear Approach Allows you to explore challenging cases, controversy, and evolving evidence, connecting your learning directly to complex clinical practice. Interactive Quizzes & Flashcards (Quizlet) Spiral Approach Enables rapid cycle deliberate practice—the consistent revisiting and reinforcement of knowledge for both your exams and your work on the shop floor.
This project is a living resource. It will inevitably be a little rough around the edges at the beginning, but as we go through topics, we hope that you will engage and act as post-publication peer reviewers. By suggesting improvements and picking up mistakes, you can help it rapidly improve into a useful, continually updated resource for everyone.
A Final Word of Encouragement
We know that a career in Emergency Medicine can be "physically, emotionally and mentally tough." You are often dealing with the sickest patients with incomplete data, all while acting as the safety net for the entire health system. But remember, the challenge is matched by the reward. As a specialist in this field, you will learn how to "manage the best 4 hours of every other specialty!"
We hope that with this project, we can take a little bit of the stress out of memorising EM.
Welcome to the Memorising Emergency Medicine (MEM:EM) project. We are thrilled to have you join us. This document introduces you to the core educational theories that form the foundation of our resources and our approach to helping you succeed.
The primary goal of this project is to accelerate the learning curve and decrease the knowledge translation window for trainees. MEM:EM is designed to complement official resources like RCEM learning, providing locally-mapped content that fulfils the specific requirements of the RCEM 2021 curriculum.
MEM:EM was born from the direct experience of collating and refining countless resources during training, with the aim of sharing those insights to help others on their own journey. It will be useful whether you are preparing for clinical progression, RCEM/ACEM exams, the Portfolio pathway, or if you have completed training but are looking to maintain your knowledge level with minimal time input.
To achieve this, the project is built upon a few powerful and learning theories that we will explore together.
The Core Method: A "Two-Pronged Approach" to Learning EM
Mastering the breadth and depth of Emergency Medicine (EM) is a significant challenge. It requires a specific strategy that combines structured, systematic learning with the practical, case-based learning that happens on the shop floor. We call this the "two-pronged approach."
A purely academic approach leaves knowledge inert, while a purely case-based approach leaves gaps in your foundation. True mastery in Emergency Medicine comes from weaving these two threads together—using the curriculum to build the fabric of your knowledge and using clinical experience to stitch it into practice.
Prong 1: The Linear Path of Foundational Study
The linear path involves working systematically through the core topics of the Emergency Medicine curriculum. It is the foundational, structured part of your learning journey.
Benefit: It ensures that all of the basics of the RCEM curriculum are covered comprehensively, leaving no gaps in your fundamental knowledge.
Prong 2: The Non-Linear Path of Clinical Experience
The non-linear, or asynchronous, path involves reading around cases you have seen and going back to topics as needed when a challenging case occurs. This is learning driven by your direct clinical experience. Benefit: It facilitates deeper learning by directly connecting abstract knowledge to your personal, challenging clinical encounters.
How These Two Paths Work Together
These two paths are not separate; they are complementary forces that reinforce one another. The linear path builds your knowledge base, while the non-linear path solidifies it through practical application and emotional connection.
Linear Learning Non-Linear Learning Definition: Working systematically through the core curriculum topics. Definition: Reading around cases and revisiting topics based on clinical encounters. Benefit: Ensures comprehensive coverage of foundational knowledge. Benefit: Connects knowledge to personal experience for deeper, lasting retention.
This dual approach is precisely why "stories" are so important in medicine. They help pass on crucial learning points by attaching them to memorable cases, which significantly aids knowledge retention. This cycle of systematic study and case-based application builds robust knowledge. The final step is to ensure this knowledge becomes permanent expertise through intentional, structured repetition.
A purely academic approach leaves knowledge inert, while a purely case-based approach leaves gaps in your foundation. True mastery in Emergency Medicine comes from weaving these two threads together—using the curriculum to build the fabric of your knowledge and using clinical experience to stitch it into practice.
The linear path involves working systematically through the core topics of the Emergency Medicine curriculum. It is the foundational, structured part of your learning journey.
Benefit: It ensures that all of the basics of the RCEM curriculum are covered comprehensively, leaving no gaps in your fundamental knowledge.
The non-linear, or asynchronous, path involves reading around cases you have seen and going back to topics as needed when a challenging case occurs. This is learning driven by your direct clinical experience.
| Linear Learning | Non-Linear Learning |
| Definition: Working systematically through the core curriculum topics. | Definition: Reading around cases and revisiting topics based on clinical encounters. |
| Benefit: Ensures comprehensive coverage of foundational knowledge. | Benefit: Connects knowledge to personal experience for deeper, lasting retention. |
This dual approach is precisely why "stories" are so important in medicine. They help pass on crucial learning points by attaching them to memorable cases, which significantly aids knowledge retention. This cycle of systematic study and case-based application builds robust knowledge. The final step is to ensure this knowledge becomes permanent expertise through intentional, structured repetition.
Deepening Your Expertise: The "Spiral Approach"
Once you have engaged with a topic through both linear and non-linear learning, the key to mastery is repetition. The RCEM curriculum emphasizes this through what it calls the "spiral approach." This is not about simply re-reading the same material; it's about revisiting topics over time to build a more sophisticated understanding.
The Spiral approach to revising topics builds "the sophistication of knowledge, attitudes and decision making. This aids reinforcement of principles, the integration of topics, and the achievement of higher levels of competency, moving from competent to expert."
The ultimate goal of the spiral approach is to guide your development along the professional spectrum, helping you progress from being merely competent in a subject to becoming a true expert. The MEM:EM project is designed to provide you with the practical tools to put all of these theories into practice.
Putting Theory into Practice: How to Use MEM:EM Resources
The MEM:EM project has been carefully designed to combine the "two-pronged" and "spiral" approaches using a specific set of resources.
Our content is referenced to core texts, journals, and #FOAMED resources. It is edited with the help of AI to proofread and refine the language to aid clarity and brevity, then checked prior to publication by an Emergency Medicine consultant who has completed Emergency Medicine Specialty training in both Australasia (ACEM) and the UK.
The Spiral approach to revising topics builds "the sophistication of knowledge, attitudes and decision making. This aids reinforcement of principles, the integration of topics, and the achievement of higher levels of competency, moving from competent to expert."
The ultimate goal of the spiral approach is to guide your development along the professional spectrum, helping you progress from being merely competent in a subject to becoming a true expert. The MEM:EM project is designed to provide you with the practical tools to put all of these theories into practice.
Our content is referenced to core texts, journals, and #FOAMED resources. It is edited with the help of AI to proofread and refine the language to aid clarity and brevity, then checked prior to publication by an Emergency Medicine consultant who has completed Emergency Medicine Specialty training in both Australasia (ACEM) and the UK.
Here is how you can use our tools to support each phase of your learning:
| Resource Type | Supported Approach | How It Helps You Learn |
| Blogs, Podcasts & Mapped Resources | Linear Approach | Allows you to work systematically through the RCEM curriculum topics, ensuring a complete and solid foundation of core knowledge. |
| Deeper Dives & Case Discussions | Non-Linear Approach | Allows you to explore challenging cases, controversy, and evolving evidence, connecting your learning directly to complex clinical practice. |
| Interactive Quizzes & Flashcards (Quizlet) | Spiral Approach | Enables rapid cycle deliberate practice—the consistent revisiting and reinforcement of knowledge for both your exams and your work on the shop floor. |
This project is a living resource. It will inevitably be a little rough around the edges at the beginning, but as we go through topics, we hope that you will engage and act as post-publication peer reviewers. By suggesting improvements and picking up mistakes, you can help it rapidly improve into a useful, continually updated resource for everyone.
A Final Word of Encouragement
We know that a career in Emergency Medicine can be "physically, emotionally and mentally tough." You are often dealing with the sickest patients with incomplete data, all while acting as the safety net for the entire health system. But remember, the challenge is matched by the reward. As a specialist in this field, you will learn how to "manage the best 4 hours of every other specialty!"
We hope that with this project, we can take a little bit of the stress out of memorising EM.
We hope that with this project, we can take a little bit of the stress out of memorising EM.
MEM:EM Podcast
1.0 Welcome to the MEM:EM Podcast A guide to our mission & Learning philosophy
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