We are now only five days away from the first day of the Alliance Industry Summit (AIS), which means, even more importantly, we are now only five days away from CMEpalooza Trivia Night. I’m sure all of you who are attending AIS already have it highlighted and underlined on your calendars, but just in case there is anyone still on the fence about it, here are the Top Five Reasons You Should Attend CMEpalooza Trivia Night:

5. You will miss out if you don’t go, but you won’t miss anything if you do go. CMEpalooza Trivia Night will run from 6-7:30 pm ET on Monday, September 14, which fits in nicely between the AIS evening reception (5-6 pm) and your dinner reservations (sometime after 7:30 pm). I know there are some of you out there who prefer to eat early (some of you very early – I won’t name names, but you know who you are) but, c’mon, this is NYC! This is the city that never sleeps! No one is eating dinner before 8 pm. In fact, if you make a reservation at a restaurant in NYC before 8 pm, the restaurant staff will laugh in your face when you show up. It’s true! (note: It’s not true. What is true is that one of the great things about being in NYC is that there are plenty of late-night dining options available. It’s more than just a slice of pizza from Sbarro or takeout Chinese food.)

4. There will be snacks and refreshments available. OK, fine, yes, maybe 8 pm is a long time for some of you to wait to eat between lunch and dinner, but good news, we’ve got you covered! As with every other CMEpalooza Trivia Night that we have hosted, there will be free snacks and drinks provided. Yay! Do I know what those snacks and drinks will be? No! Will there be those little mini pigs in a blanket? Maybe! Will there be Bugles (everyone loves Bugles)? I don’t know, but probably not! All I can tell you is that there will absolutely positively be some sort of snacks and refreshments provided that you won’t have to pay for. Still seems like a good deal to me.

3. You can win prizes! And by prizes, I mean money. And by money, I mean cash. Cold hard cash. Scott usually dresses up in a top hat and tails like Mr. Pennybags from Monopoly and dispenses large stacks of cash to the winners while twirling his mustache and saying things like, “I say, old chum, you have absconded with all my greenbacks. How shall I ever pay for my dinner with Misters Carnegie and Rockefeller?” (note: Alas, most of that isn’t true either, though it did make me snort with laughter thinking about it. Except for the part about cash prizes. That part is true.)

2. You might learn something. Actually, I guarantee that you will learn something. Will that something that you learn be useful? Maybe. I suppose that depends on your definition of “useful.” At last year’s CMEpalooza Trivia Night, many people learned that Bruce Springsteen sang the lyric “Well, they blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night.” Is that useful information? I’d argue yes. You never know when you might be at a cocktail party, sipping on a dirty martini, and one of the other guests asks you, “Excuse me. I’m terribly sorry to bother you, but would you perchance know where and/or when they blew up the Chicken Man?” Imagine the knowing smile you will be able to give then.

Also, we will have questions about CME stuff. Whatever.

1. It’s fun! (note: It is!)

Because CMEpalooza was, is, and always will be an event free to any and all who want to partake in our events, it has typically been considered to be “education for the masses.”

Certainly, among the primary intents of our approach has been to educate those who are unable to take advantage — be it for financial, logistical, or other reasons — of the live educational opportunities that often pop up in the CME calendar. Every now and then, we’ll hear from organizations who coordinate special “CMEpalooza Days” to encourage their teams to watch our sessions, either together in conference rooms or individually from the comfort of their homes. Traditionally, we read these stories as “That’s kinda neat” anecdotes, but we never considered doing anything more with them.

But during our exhausting multiday planning meeting for our upcoming Fall event, we talked about collecting some of these stories to share with the CME broader community. Why? Certainly, shameless marketing and to give us fodder for future blog posts, but also to encourage you to think creatively about ways you might be able to make Palooza day a time of internal collaboration for everyone on your team.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll be using this space to highlight some of the organizations who have made Palooza day into something special for their team. Some folks keep it simple; some are more thoughtful and comprehensive. Maybe you’ll like what these folks are doing. Maybe you’ll think it’s all a bit silly. You do you.

If your organization does something special for your team on our live CMEpalooza days that you’d like to share, please let us know via email (click here for Derek’s email — he likes hearing from strangers. Be sure to write him many paragraphs about the latest book you are reading). I bet he’ll even agree to feature your group in one of our short video interviews.

Last week, Scott wrote a blog post that ostensibly was to provide a couple of CMEpalooza summer updates, but appeared to mostly be just a convenient excuse for him to rant about getting old and these dang kids and their newfangled abbreviations (and also to complain about great literature? What was that all about? My guy is out here putting Dickens and Bradbury on blast. Granted, given that I’m the guy who just dove into a 900-page Winston Churchill biography—and that’s just volume one of three—so perhaps I shouldn’t be the arbiter of what is or isn’t boring. But I digress…)

Buried amongst the complaints and Gen Z abbreviations was an announcement that CMEpalooza Trivia Night will be back for a third consecutive year at the Alliance Industry Summit (AIS). I wanted to provide a few more details for anyone who has never attended AIS or been to a CMEpalooza Trivia Night.

• WHAT: CMEpalooza Trivia Night
• WHEN: During AIS from 6-7:30 pm on Monday, September 14
• WHERE: Mortimer B. Zuckerman Research Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York (same location as AIS)
• WHY: Because it’s fun! Also, thanks to our event sponsor, AcademicCME, there will be free food and drink as well as cash prizes for the winners.
• HOW: This is an excellent question. Typically for our trivia events, we have five rounds of 5 questions. The first four questions of each round will be related to the theme of that round, and the last question of each round will be a pop culture question.

Here is a general breakdown of the types of questions you will encounter during CMEpalooza Trivia Night:

Round 1: AIS Day 1. We will create one question from each session from the first (half) day of AIS. As Scott mentioned previously, due to the nature of this year’s AIS schedule, we will only be able to cover one block of presentations with our questions. As an example, this is one of the questions from last year’s CMEpalooza Trivia Night (I’ll put the answers at the very end.)

Is it compliant to hold accredited and nonaccredited CME programs in the same room?

1. Yes, as long as each is properly identified
2. Yes, as long as each is properly identified and there is a 30-minute gap between them
3. Yes, as long as each is properly identified and there is a 60-minute gap between them
4. No

Round 2: Alliance Almanac. This round will include four questions developed from recent Almanac articles, so you better start cramming now! We may include questions such as:

Are more participants really always better in outcomes reports?

1. Yes! The higher the number the better!
2. No! If 75% of participants are students or retired clinicians, that’s not better!
3. I don’t know! Ask Greg Salinas, he wrote the article!
4. Who cares! I’m going to get more free snacks and drinks! Thanks AcademicCME!

Round 3: AcademicCME. This is a special round dedicated to our sponsor for the evening, AcademicCME. All questions for this round will feature AcademicCME or AcademicCME-adjacent trivia. For example:

Temple University is the alma mater of AcademicCME’s founder Tim Hayes (and Hall & Oates). Which bird of prey is the Temple U mascot?

1. Eagle
2. Hawk
3. Falcon
4. Owl

Round 4: ACCME. This one is fairly self-explanatory. It’s questions about or related to the ACCME. For example:

According to the 2025 ACCME Annual Report, which provider type has the most accredited organizations?

1. Hospital/Healthcare Delivery System
2. Publishing/Education Company
3. School of Medicine/Health Sciences
4. Professional Membership Organization

Round 5: CME Wildcard! (I used an exclamation mark because it’s wild!) This section will consist of general questions related to anything having to do with CME and/or CME organizations. Here is an example from last year:

2026 is the Alliance’s 50th Anniversary. Which city hosted the first Alliance conference back in 1976?

1. Chicago
2. Atlanta
3. Philadelphia
4. San Francisco

Pop Culture Questions: As mentioned, the last question of each round will be a pop culture question. We’re using “pop culture” as a bit of a catch-all term here. It basically means questions on any topic other than CME or AIS. It could be anything from TV shows to movies to history to sports to whatever. Since AIS will be in NYC, most of these questions will likely have a NYC slant to them. Here is an example from last year, when AIS was in Philly:

Which of the following TV shows is NOT set in Philadelphia?

1. Abbott Elementary
2. Boy Meets World
3. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
4. That ‘70s Show

Now that you know all about CMEpalooza Trivia Night, make your plans to join us. There will be snacks. There will be prizes. We’ll be done in time for you to make your dinner reservation. See you in September!

ANSWER KEY: Correct answers in GREEN

Is it compliant to hold accredited and nonaccredited CME programs in the same room?

1. Yes, as long as each is properly identified
2. Yes, as long as each is properly identified and there is a 30-minute gap between them
3. Yes, as long as each is properly identified and there is a 60-minute gap between them
4. No

Explanation: This is known as the “30 minute rule” and is outlined in Standard 5.2a.

Are more participants really always better in outcomes reports?

1. Yes! The higher the number the better!
2. No! If 75% of participants are students or retired clinicians, that’s not better!
3. I don’t know! Ask Greg Salinas, he wrote the article!
4. Who cares! I’m going to get more free snacks and drinks! Thanks Academic CME!

Explanation: Greg explains it much better, and with fewer exclamation marks, in this Almanac article.

Temple University is the alma mater of Tim Hayes (and Hall & Oates). Which bird of prey is the Temple U mascot?

1. Eagle
2. Hawk
3. Falcon
4. Owl

Explanation: They decided on the owl due to Temple’s origin as a night school (night owls.) Temple’s founder Russell Conwell famously remarked “The owl of the night makes the eagle of the day.”

According to the 2025 ACCME Annual Report, which provider type has the most accredited organizations?

1. Hospital/Healthcare Delivery System
2. Publishing/Education Company
3. School of Medicine/Health Sciences
4. Professional Membership Organization

Explanation: Hospital/Healthcare Delivery System (676), Professional Membership Organization (319), Publishing/Education Company (229), and School of Medicine/Health Sciences (168)

2026 is the Alliance’s 50th Anniversary. Which city hosted the first Alliance conference back in 1976?

1. Chicago
2. Philadelphia
3. Atlanta
4. San Francisco

Explanation: The Alliance “group” started meeting in 1974, but the first conference was held in Atlanta at the incorporation of the Alliance in 1976.

Which of the following TV shows is NOT set in Philadelphia?

1. Abbott Elementary
2. Boy Meets World
3. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
4. That ‘70s Show

Explanation: That 70s Show is set in the fictional town of Point Place, Wisconsin