Estimated read time: 4 minutes
Dr Vicki Currie is a Paediatric Emergency Medicine registrar at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, hoping to complete training and CCT in September. Having previously written blog posts for Don’t Forget The Bubbles (DFTB), she became the Lead and Editor for Bubblewrap two years ago. When not editing Bubble wrap Vicki can be found running with her cocker spaniel Scramble or endlessly chatting with friends.
What is Don’t Forget the Bubbles (DFTB)?
Don’t Forget The Bubbles (DFTB) is a global paediatric educational organisation that was initially formed in 2013 as a way for people to track their notes for revision; since, it has snowballed into a large community for sharing information about paediatric practice internationally.
The website currently holds 1250 blog posts, written by 250 authors from around the world. It is the top paediatric medical website internationally, with 1.5 million page views a year. It is also currently ranked no.4 internationally for the highest digital impact factor for all medical websites.
What is Bubblewrap?
Bubblewrap is a section of DFTB, which started right in the beginning. It consists of reviews of 5 new papers in paediatrics, published at the beginning of each month. Reviewers help translate the findings of the paper into a more readable and concise format, as well as mentioning any limitations or biases which are important to convey.
The best thing about Bubblewrap is that it fits much more easily into people’s busy schedules than having to read a full paper – you can have a quick read over your morning cup of coffee!
Recently, Bubblewrap had its first collaboration – with CHEERI! You can check out the collaboration here (69th Bubblewrap – April 2023): https://dontforgetthebubbles.com/the-69th-bubble-wrap-dftb-x-cheeri/
What is your role in Bubblewrap? What motivated you to get involved?
My role as Lead and Editor means I am responsible for organising and publishing each monthly issue of Bubblewrap. This involves sourcing and encouraging people to get involved, perhaps helping people to find a paper if they haven’t decided on one already, editing and providing feedback on the reviews written (which includes reading the paper myself to make sure nothing important has been missed out). And finally, I’ll upload each Bubblewrap to the website, and also link any other relevant DFTB blog posts to the reviews so readers can further explore the topics if interested.
I got involved with DFTB because I was really impressed by the level of content they produced. I had written a few things for various websites before, but I really wanted to be a part of the international community that DFTB is, which is amazing for bouncing off ideas and just being part of the community of practice.
What else does DFTB offer?
There are lots of blog posts on the website, with a focus on paediatric emergency medicine, but also covering a lot of general paediatrics. The X-ray resources section can also be really helpful.
One significant portion is called Skin Deep, which is a collated library of skin conditions in all different skin tones – this has won lots of awards nationally, and has been accredited by the RCPCH.
Furthermore, there are some teaching modules: if you are delivering a teaching session, there are facilitator and learner guides for the modules, which are case-base styled. Some of these also contain simulations!
There are also courses (in person or online) and some conferences; for example, the Illness and Injury Conference is coming up in Birmingham this May.
Other than the courses and conferences, everything on the website is free and easily accessible. As you can imagine, there is quite a large team of contributors and people working behind-the-scenes to help keep everything up to date!
How can I get involved with DFTB/Bubblewrap? How much commitment is it?
We’re always keen for more people to get involved! The easiest way to get involved, with the least commitment, is writing a review for Bubblewrap. This will probably take around 2-3 hours, to read the paper, understand it, and translate it into an easy-to-read format. You can commit to as much as you’d like (e.g. as a one-off, or every couple of months). Whether you already have a paper in mind, or have a topic of interest but might like some help with deciding a paper to review, you can contact Vicki with your interest: Twitter @DrVickiCurrie1
This can be a really useful way to practice critical appraisal of papers, as Vicki will read your draft and provide feedback and suggest edits.
If you have a particular topic you’re interested in, have a look at what is currently on the website; DFTB welcomes updates to existing pages, and also new content. You can get in touch with DFTB through their Twitter @DFTBubbles.
We have a big mixture of contributors – not just paediatric trainees, but also medical students, paramedics, nurses, advanced nurse practitioners, GPs… basically all allied health professionals! We’re also looking to do more collaborations so do get in touch if your group would like to contribute to Bubblewrap!
Useful links:
Don’t Forget The Bubbles Homepage: https://dontforgetthebubbles.com/
DFTB Bubblewrap: https://dontforgetthebubbles.com/topic/bubble-wrap/
DFTB Twitter: @DFTBubbles
CHEERI x DFTB 69th Bubblewrap collaboration: https://dontforgetthebubbles.com/the-69th-bubble-wrap-dftb-x-cheeri/