Objective: To provide third year medical students in a family medicine (FM) rotation the opportunity to participate in the editorial process of a daily news service as part of an informatics curriculum. By the end of the rotation, students will be able to identify, select, and pitch a publication idea to an editorial advisory board.
Methods: Third year medical students participate in the editorial process of Physician's First Watch (PFW) (firstwatch.jwatch.org) as part of medical informatics and FM curriculum. This opportunity was negotiated by a FM faculty member on the PFW editorial advisory board. At the beginning of each rotation, clinical and library faculty meet with students to teach Web 2.0 applications and to review project instructions. Using the technology, students are required to submit one newsworthy pitch with a concise justification. Students must also sign up for PFW conference calls. Each sign-up slot is linked to the pitch deadline and conference call times. To avoid duplication, an RSS feed displays recently submitted topics. Daily pitches are simultaneously sent to the editorial board and faculty. Students participate in the editorial conference call, where they pitch their submission and learn if their pitch was selected for publication.