When Derek and I came up with the idea for our Tin Anniversary “10 Years in 10 Minutes” series earlier this year, it forced us to take a look back at some of our old agendas to see where everyone from 2014 had meandered professionally since then. Some people had jumped around to multiple organizations; very, very few were still with the same employer.

Allison Gardner, PhD, is one of those few who have stayed put – she recently celebrated her 15th year with Med-IQ. Allison has certainly taken on more responsibility since her CMEpalooza debut, though we’ll only take part of the credit for her professional ascension.

While we didn’t have time to talk about Allison’s undoubtedly fascinating 2007 paper entitled “CaMKII can participate in but is not sufficient for the establishment of the membrane block to polyspermy in mouse eggs” (it’s sadly behind a paywall), we did have time to banter about her earliest CMEpalooza experiences, the need to be prepared in educational emergencies, and those balmy Chicago winters.

One of the nice things about a long-ish career in one particular field is that you get to see some of the good people you work with succeed by moving on to bigger and better things where they can spread their wings. I had the good fortune of sharing ideas and travels with John Ruggiero at an early professional stop for both of us in the CME space, and could clearly tell even then that this was someone who was going places.

Everybody likes John, and for good reason (even if he will never tell you how old he is). John is unfailingly kind, witty, talented, and truly celebrates the successes of others. He probably has a mean bone somewhere in his body, but he hides it well.

Now in his role as Executive Director of U.S. Medical Affairs, and Head of HEOR & Real World Evidence/Learning at Daiichi Sankyo, John took a few moments out of his travels to join us in the latest installment of our special “10 Years in 10 Minutes” CMEpalooza Tin Anniversary series. Here, we talk about the importance of provider/supporter communication, how CMEpalooza predicted the COVID pandemic (sort of), and the secret password at McDonalds.

Back in the spring, we launched a series of short interviews under the “10 Years in 10 Minutes,” banner to help celebrate the 10th anniversary of CMEpalooza. Because people seemed to like it so much, we figured we’d queue up another batch this fall.

To kick off the series with a bang (quite literally, as you’ll find out if you watch), we first caught up with Daniel Guinee, a CME veteran who currently serves as the Director of Digital Education at PlatformQ Health. If you are struggling to figure out how to get your teenager interested in science class, Daniel has an idea to get him/her/them fired up (again, quite literally, as you’ll find out if you watch) while also reintroducing everyone to the term “lower third.”