I know, I know. There are a lot of competitions and giveaways right now in CMEpalooza World (and yes, more are coming on Wednesday, October 19 – just wait and see).

But yesterday, we held our first massive gala to pick the winners of CMEopoly, our special Sponsor event that wrapped up on Friday. Derek gave some sort of long-winded speech about how our announcement should usurp the announcement of the Nobel Prizes going on right now, but that seemed a bit over-the-top, and I stopped listening when he got to No. 18 in his list of reasons (note from Derek: Reason #18 was that Annie Ernaux won the Nobel Prize in Literature over Salman Rushdie. Outrageous!!) I am sure he’ll pick right back up when the list of winners for our CMEpalooza STEPtacular Challenge, sponsored by Talem Health, are announced next week.

Anyway, without further ado, here are your winners of CMEopoly, all of whom were awarded a $100 Amazon gift card to spend on whatever whimsical item they desired (a Phillies rally towel would be totally acceptable):

• Jeannine Creazzo, MLIS, MBA, AHIP, Director, Medical Library, Continuing Education, and Research, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
• Carrie Roberts, BS, CHCP, Director, Continuing Medical Education, Steward Health Care
• Christina Casanova Lider, Manager, Development Support, PeerView Institute for Medical Education
• Cindy Davidson, Scientific Editor, Global Learning Collaborative
• Dawn Sinclair, Accreditation Coordinator, College of Pharmacy, Office of CE & PD, Purdue University

Thanks to everyone for playing!

On the Jewish calendar, today is Yom Kippur, our Day of Atonement when we are supposed to acknowledge and repent for our sins over the last year. Since so, so many of you have pointed out various issues and errors with our CMEopoly sponsor event that rolled out on Friday, I thought it would be only be fair to own up to all of the issues in this public forum, even those that aren’t of my own doing,

1. “There are 12 spaces on the answer form but you said we only needed to provide 11 responses”
   Yes, my math skills are apparently eroding. Go ahead and skip a color block if you want to. No penalty. Yup, my fault.
2. “Company X’s website is down”
   Unbeknownest to us, one of our sponsors was migrating to a new server in the hours when we launched CMEopoly last week, causing all sorts of chaos among those of you delving deep for clue answers. Their site was back up in a few hours. Patience, people, patience. Nope, not my fault.
3. “There are two ‘Purple Space’ blocks”
   What can I say, there are only so many colors in my mental color palette. I guess I could have given a Violet or Plum category, but I didn’t. So go ahead and mush all of the purple clues in one big category and give us two answers. Yup, my fault.
4. “These clues are too easy. Everyone is going to get them right.”
   The purpose of CMEopoly isn’t to make you work extremely hard to find right answers, but rather to expose you to some of the great work our many sponsors are producing right now. Nope, not my fault.
5. “You made yourself one of the clue answers. How arrogant.”
   Call it arrogance, call it laziness, call it shameless self-promotion. I won’t, however, tell you which question this refers to. Yup, my fault.
6. “The wording of one of these questions is terrible. I don’t understand what you are asking.”
   This is why we offer multiple options in each category. Writing 36 good clues is a lot of work – they aren’t all going to be perfect. But I did double check to make sure there is nothing erroneous or misleading – we’re good. Nope, not my fault.

So there you have it – another year where I’ve wiped the slate clean. I’m sure there will be plenty of replenishment in the coming months (note from Derek: I guarantee it.)

And just as a reminder, you still have time to complete your CMEopoly entries and earn a chance at winning a $100 Amazon gift card. Entries are due at 5 pm ET on Friday, so get cracking!

Here at CMEpalooza HQ, there is nothing we like more than our sponsors (OK, maybe the 76ers – preseason starts next week!!). And to celebrate our sponsors, as well as our loyal blog readers, we love trotting our special events in advance of every live broadcast date to both give exposure to our sponsors as well as pass along some handy spending cash to a few lucky folks. I am sure that Halloween candy has doubled in price once again this year (man, I miss the days when a quarter could buy you a Baby Ruth bar), so we’re once again giving away $500 in Amazon gift cards this year. Five winners will get $100 each.

After its successful unveiling in the Spring of 2020, we’re bring back one of our old favorites this Fall – CMEopoly. Yes, yes, Derek prefers that we call it CMonopolE, but when do I ever listen to him?

Here is what you need to know to play CMEopoly:

1. Click on this link to download the necessary forms. That will give you a game board, the full list of “clues,” and an answer sheet.
2. Call up our Sponsor page, where you can get information about all of the CMEpalooza Fall sponsors as well as links to their websites (this is vitally important since you’ll need them to get all of the answers).
3. You earn one entry into our prize drawing for answering one question in each color bundle. We have a lot of sponsors this year (36 of ’em!) so there is more work than usual to qualify. Each entry will require 11 correct answers, though to ease your burden, I made the questions easier than usual (note from Derek: Scott is getting soft.) This shouldn’t take you long.
4. You can submit up to two entries into the prize drawing, but for each entry, you must answer a unique series of clues. Each successful entry earns one chance at winning.
5. When you complete your answer form(s), email it to me at scott@medcasewriter.com. Make sure to include your name and professional affiliation so that when we announce that you’ve won, everyone can be sufficiently jealous.

Entries are due on Friday, October 7 at 5 p.m. ET, so get cracking.