Addressing the Controversy Head On

One of the nice features about YouTube Live (formerly Google Hangouts On Air) is that you get to gather presenters in a private, unrecorded “green room” prior to start of each official broadcast. Basically, until you hit the actual “Start Broadcast” button, what is said in the green room stays private.

Unfortunately, it was brought to our attention last week that while Derek and I were setting up for a CMEpalooza Spring session in 2015, one of us (Derek) unknowingly hit the “Start Broadcast” session and made our “private” commentary available to the outside world.

The video apparently has become recently unearthed, if only because our haters probably recognize that CMEpalooza Fall is coming up (next Wednesday, October 19) and they want to cast a pall over our tremendous event.

We’ve been receiving calls from major media outlets in cities such as Provo, UT and Rockville, MD, asking us to comment on our salacious discussion. So instead of waiting for the video and transcript to leak out, we’re being forthwith and presenting it to you, in full, today.

We’re not exactly embarrassed by it – I mean, the folks who run other CME meetings have told us way worse things in private moments – but it’s not something we’re necessarily proud of.

Warning: What you are about to read is the kind of locker room, guy talk that all of us know is totally harmless and meaningless. Proceed at your own risk.

(garbled crosstalk)

Scott: That meeting used to be great. Some years, it’s still very beautiful.

Derek: I tried to force it to move actually. Maybe to someplace in Palm Beach. I tried to force it to move and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and ruin it.

Scott: That’s huge news there.

Derek: No, no. No this was— And I tried to force it to move very heavily. In fact, I offered to buy furniture for all of their exhibitors. Exhibitors want nice furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’ I looked at the furniture they were offering – terrible. But I couldn’t get there. Then all of a sudden I see at the next meeting, all of their exhibitors have this fake grass and these big phony tiki torches and everything. They’ve totally changed their look.

Scott: Sheesh, what about this other meeting coming up? The one next month. That agenda is hot.

Derek: Yeah, that one, with the gold star endorsements. I’ve got to get out my credit card in case I want to register. You know I’m automatically attracted to great meetings — I just start registering as soon as I can. It’s like a magnet. I just register. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Scott: Whatever you want.

Derek: Pay the Early Bird reg fee, the full fee, the 1-day. You can do anything.

Scott: That’s right, my man!

As we wrote earlier, we are deeply embarrassed by our comments. We’re not perfect people and CMEpalooza is not a perfect meeting. We’ve said and done things we regret, and the words released today on this year-old video transcript are one of them.

Anyone who knows us knows these words don’t reflect who we are or what CMEpalooza represents. We have traveled virtually in CME circles throughout the United States talking about the need to change the way we educate our industry, but our events have also changed us.

Let’s be honest: We’re living in the real world. This is nothing more than a distraction from the important issues we’ll be talking about during CMEpalooza Fall. The Sunshine Act is killing us, pharma funding is getting slashed and forcing too many people to lose their jobs, and the maintenance of certification system is totally broken.

We will discuss this more in the coming days.

See you at CMEpalooza Fall on Wednesday, October 19.