Once we wrap up CMEpalooza Spring each April, Derek and I usually take a mental break for a month or so before we realize that, “Oops, guess it’s time to plan for the next one.” Consequently, we have our luxurious preparatory retreat on a remote island accessible only by water buffalo scheduled for next week, but we do have a few announcements to pass along in the meantime.

As many of you know, the CME community lost two of its most treasured individuals — Ron Murray and Jason O’Grady — earlier this year, so our first two announcements are associated with their memories, while the third announcement is more of a self-promotion kind of thing.

1. Two of Ron Murray’s former colleagues from his time in the Office of Continuing Medical Education of University of Virginia School of Medicine are working on a project to pull together memories and photos of Ron’s professional life and friendships that will be compiled and shared with his family. Anyone who would like to contribute can send information to ronmurraymemories@gmail.com, a special mailbox that has been created for this project. The goal of this project is to give Ron’s family a picture of his legacy and life as a CME/CE professional. They have asked that submissions be sent by early September.
2. Thanks to an anonymous donation in memory of Jason O’Grady, we will be holding our inaugural CMEpalooza Trivia Night in conjunction with the Alliance Industry Summit (AIS) later this year in Philadelphia. We’re still firming up some of the details, but this FREE event will be held from 6-7:30 pm on Tuesday, September 17. There will almost certainly be food and drink served at this event, and not just the bags of stale soft pretzels that Derek picks up outside of the Phillies game this weekend. We will share more details as the date gets closer. We are going to require advance registration as there will be an attendance limit, but we should be able to accommodate lots of folks.
3. Speaking of AIS, last year I led a special walking tour of historic Philadelphia for conference attendees. I have had a few people ask if I would do it again this year. While we’re going to be busy with another event (see #2 above), I am volunteering leading FREE walking tours throughout the summer as part of the Independence National Historic Trust’s Twilight Tour program. While I am only out there about once a week, there are tours every night throughout the summer. But if you really only want to find me and only me, here are the dates and times I’ll be out there for the start of these 1-hour tours (you do not need to pre-register for these):
   • Friday, June 7 at 5:15 pm
   • Friday, June 21 at 6 pm
   • Thursday, June 27 at 6 pm
   • Friday, July 5 at 5:15 pm
   • Friday, July 12 at 6 pm
   • Thursday, July 25 at 6 pm
   • Friday, August 16 at 5:15 pm
   • Friday, August 23 at 6 pm
   • Friday, August 30 at 5:15 pm
   • Friday, September 6 at 5:15 pm

Happy summer everyone!

(note from Derek: I truly was not going to say anything about #3 above because it is a nice thing that Scott does/is doing, but it is driving me slightly nuts that he left out the colons for every “515 pm.” What’s that all about? Does he want me to edit them for him? Is this a Gen Z thing and he’s trying to keep up with the kids? Is he just screwing with me? He’s probably just screwing with me. I’m going back on my CMEpalooza break.)

It was another banner day of education for CMEpalooza on Wednesday, with a whirlwind of top-notch education during our Spring event that our audience gobbled up like Cookie Monster with a sleeve of Thin Mints. While there were the usual minor technology glitches (note from Derek: me and Poll Everywhere are not friends at the moment), our faculty was able to seamlessly weather the storm and persevere. We want to thank everyone who participated and contributed to another great day.

And, boy, there were a lot of you who joined us. On the 10-year anniversary of our first live event, CMEpalooza smashed all of our previous attendance records by, well, a lot (please hold as I do the calculations on my fingers and toes).

We had 1,668 people who viewed at least one of our CMEpalooza Spring sessions yesterday, which is a whopping 35.1% increase from our previous record set in Fall 2023. Once again, Derek and I are humbled by the support that we continue to get from the CME community. I don’t know that I’ve met 1,668 people in my entire life, so to see that number of learners showing up on a single day in our online metrics is pretty amazing.

For those of you who missed any of the live presentations, or if you simply want to go back and watch something again (a perfect date night could absolutely involve getting cozy on the couch to Be Curious, Not Judgmental of Your Data with a couple pints of grog), all full recordings of the CMEpalooza Fall sessions are now available for the low, low price of $0. Derek will put them in the session archives once he’s done with his day job.

Thanks again to everyone who tuned in. We’ll be back again in October with CMEpalooza Fall and will pass along news shortly of an additional amazing and very special event later in the year (it’s called building suspense).

Until then, be well everyone.

Sadly, the Food Network stars were unable to attend this morning’s carnival-like event where we drew the winners of the CMEpalooza Gets Chopped sponsor event. Something about a “missing” appearance fee in their contracts — prima donnas.

Nonetheless, indeed, we had balloons, elephants, and funnel cake galore for the thousands of revelers who packed our corporate headquarters for this exciting moment. So without further ado, here are our winners, each of whom received a $100 Amazon gift card.

• Courtney Samples — Continuing Medical Education Coordinator, Legacy Health
• Audrie Tornow — Managing Partner, Excalibur Medical Education
• Cindy Chung — Program Manager, American Society of Clinical Oncology
• Georgeanne Ledgerwood — Medical Librarian/Medical Education Specialist, Accredited Continuing Education, Wellspan Health
• Tori Moser — Education Specialist, Faith Regional Health Services

In addition to these individual winners, we also awarded our first-ever corporate prize to Global Education Group (a $250 Amazon gift card) for having the most successful entries in our event. I am sure everyone will spend their winnings wisely on household staples like toilet paper and shampoo.

Congratulations to our champions.