Dancing to the Finish Line

You may have noticed that the blog has been somewhat quiet in the early parts of September. We’re sorry.

I’ve been busy running through a battery of preliminary tests with our presenters for CMEpalooza Fall and getting some other work done. Derek, meanwhile, has been furiously practicing his tryout routine round the clock in the hopes of fulfilling his lifelong dream of being one of the “Sixers Dancers” – you know, the guys and girls who entertain the fans between timeouts and at halftime of NBA games. This is going to be the year, Warnick – we believe in you!

Never fear though – the silence is ending… NOW! We recognize that the days are dangerously dwindling and that CMEpalooza Fall is right around the corner on Wednesday, October 19.

What we’ll be doing here in the next few weeks as you complete your CMEpalooza Bingo!! gameboard (due this Friday) is to give insight into a few of the more unique sessions we have on the agenda this year.

A few weeks back, I dragged a very retro basketball jersey out of the bowels of my closet to record a somewhat meandering video with Derek where we discussed each of the sessions on the Fall agenda, but honestly, I don’t know that we did some of the sessions justice between all of our “Er”s and “Hmmm”s, so I thought it be a better use of your time to read through some of the explanations.

Today, I’ll be explaining the concept behind our 3 p.m. ET session entitled “Common/Not-So-Common Case Conundrums in CME.” This session is being sponsored by CME Matters, one of the Silver sponsors of CMEpalooza Fall.

Here is how this session is going to work:

1. We have recruited 2 teams of awesome faculty. Each team has a moderator and 2 panelists. One team is comprised of people who work for medical education companies, a second team of people who work in the hospital setting.
2. The moderator for each panel is — under cloak and dagger — developing a robust case study focused on a scenario that offers a variety of real-life challenges for those of us who wrangle with CME on a daily basis. I won’t give away any secrets regarding the specific focus of each case, partially because the cases haven’t yet been written, but also because I was the kid at school who loved knowing secrets about everyone.
3. The day before this session goes live, each scenario will be unleashed upon both the unknowing panelists and you, our prospective audience members. Why the day before? Well, I wanted to put a little bit of time pressure on our panelists so that it more adequately mirrored real life, but I also didn’t want to hijack them with a total surprise on the day of CMEpalooza Fall. Hopefully this is a reasonable compromise.We’ll post the scenarios on this site at the same time our panelists get them in case you want a sneak peak at the kinds of issues each panel will be talking about. Don’t worry if you don’t read them before the session though – each moderator will review their case prior to their team’s live discussion.
4. In the session, panelists will talk about how they would address the various issues raised within the case, discussing the pros and cons of various approaches. It’s the kind of tangible, real-world education that I always like best, and hopefully our audience will be able to pull some golden nuggets of information for their proverbial use.
5. If there is time at the end, Derek will show off the tumbling routine that caps his tryout. Good stuff.