MIG Labs was founded in 2016 to create free, open-access, medical education (FOAM) for the prehospital community. A more in-depth explanation of the FOAM concept is available here, but the essence is simple: prehospital providers who want to improve the care they provide to their patients by increasing their knowledge should be able to do so. This sort of education should be easy to access, it should be free, and it should be high-quality. With this in mind, we continue to develop educational videos following the FOAM framework.
In 2020, we decided to grow MIG Labs even further. Anyone who has been through any sort of EMS education (or any formal education, for that matter) has probably realized that there are some classes they love and some classes they hate. While some of this has to do with the subject matter of the class, we believe that more of it has to do with the delivery of the educational content. Was the instructor personable, knowledgeable, experienced, welcoming, confident, and familiar with the concepts of adult education? Were the visual aids relevant and helpful? Was the instructor comfortable saying when they didn’t know the answer to a question? Or was the instructor just reading straight from the slides, leading you towards a slow, painful, “death by PowerPoint?” Did it seem like the instructor hadn’t reviewed the content before, and was seeing it for the first time along with you and your fellow students? Did they try to cover up gaps in their knowledge with overconfidence?
We set out to create an education center that was focused on maximizing instructional quality. We strive to offer relevant classes, built around current evidence, delivered by talented instructors, at fair prices. We opened up the MIG Labs education center in Gillette, Wyoming, and we are excited to continue growing!