With the world turning upside down right now, I think a lot of us are harkening back to the last time when we suddenly had to adjust to a temporary professional “new normal.” I’m referring, of course, to 9/11. This was obviously a very different sort of event, but I’m seeing a lot of parallels in how many of us are dealing with the aftermath.

During 9/11, I was still working in my “first career” as a newspaper reporter in central Illinois (remember my origin story from a few weeks ago?). I think I was either supposed to have the day off or maybe I was going into the office a little bit later that afternoon, but as soon as the Twin Towers collapsed, I rushed into the office, found the editor-in-chief and asked, “How can I help?”

For the next few days, pretty much all of the reporters on staff, regardless of their usual beats, became news reporters. I spent the afternoon of 9/11 on the phone with former area residents now living in New York City. I remember my main interview was with a business executive who lived in a high-rise apartment with a direct view of the Twin Towers. He was obviously stunned with everything going on, but he was extremely patient with me in describing as best he could what was happening. I still have a copy of the newspaper from that day somewhere in the house. It wasn’t a great story, but I am proud of it because it was useful to the newsroom and hopefully to the broader community.

The next several days were somewhat less chaotic but the attitude was the same. People put aside any grudges or distaste for their jobs and came in with the same attitude – “How can I help?”

Which brings me back to our current situation.

I assume by now we are all working from home. For those of you who aren’t used to this, it’s likely a pretty big adjustment. You can’t talk to the person next to you in your cubicle. You can’t take a 5-minute break to walk into your boss’ office and complain about how coworker X is totally incompetent and you hate working with her. For extroverts like Derek who thrive on social connections, it can be a bit isolating (Note from Derek: Clearly, Scott is joking here. I was social distancing before social distancing was cool.)

Compounding the problem is that some of you may not have a lot of work to do. While many organizations are busy figuring out how to transition their scheduled live events into online meetings, I suspect there is likely a slowdown for some people. Are you a meeting planner who spends most of your day coordinating with live venues for upcoming conferences? Probably not a whole lot to do that applies to your usual role.

There is no playbook for how organizations deal with unexpected crises. It’s a time for creative, on-the-fly solutions where the team rolls up its sleeves and individually asks, “How can I help?” There is some great work going on in the CME community right now as we are all being forced to problem solve. I spoke with someone yesterday whose organization managed to turn a live 2-day meeting into an online event within 72 hours. They lost a few registrations but also picked up some new learners. It was a total team effort and it was a real accomplishment because it worked!

This is unquestionably going to be a tough few weeks. I just spent the last 10 minutes teaching my 9-year-old son about compound fractions because he couldn’t hear his teacher on the video explanation she posted. I may not be 7/4 as productive as I usually am, but that’s OK (yes, you all see what I did there). Just like you are, we are figuring out as we go how this is all going to work.

So for anyone worried about stepping out of your comfort zone these next few weeks, don’t be. Asking the simple question of, “How can I help?” is not only going to give you a sense of purpose, a sense of “I still matter,” but it’s also hopefully going to bring you a level of personal satisfaction as you acquire new skills and overcome some pretty significant hurdles. Maybe you’ll be asked to work with new people. Maybe you’ll be tasked with something totally unfamiliar to you. Maybe you’ll just be asked to “sit tight” for a while.

There is still light somewhere at the end of the tunnel, and we will eventually get back to our usual rhythms and routines. In the meantime, embrace the change. It’ll feel good, I promise.

 

Since Derek and I both work remotely on a regular basis, we asked our Spring intern Katie to share her experiences from the last week to get a sense of how our CME world is adapting to changing circumstances. We hope you all stay safe.

About a month ago, the first Hospital Incident Command System email hit my work inbox. This is the system that provides us with emergency updates at Memorial Sloan Kettering. It’s been our main system-wide communications conduit regarding precautions being taken for COVID-19. We’re now up to our 11^th update. Every time I see a new update come through, I cringe a little, worried about what is coming next.

I commute to our New York City site from New Jersey. I’ve become more and more concerned about my personal risk of exposure every day. I’m fortunate to have the option to work from home most days, which I know a lot of my colleagues have not and perhaps still do not have. I don’t have to worry about the conversation a few cubicles over about someone’s fever and chills or the office-wide coughing and sneezing. I don’t have to touch the communal microwave, so I don’t have to really worry too much about the magic triumvirate of Lysol wipes, Lysol spray, and hand sanitizer.

As social distancing became emphasized in the last week, many live meetings have been canceled and travel bans put in place throughout our hospital system. It was with a heavy heart that we had to cancel our in-person CME meetings as well. It took a few days for everyone to catch up to the whirlwind of our “new normal” before we finally perked up and found someone willing to try a live, remote simulcast broadcast.

We are trying to keep part of our CME program going through simulcasting. While we’ve dabbled in this internally before, we’ve never done it with remote speakers. But as new challenges arise in the ever-changing world of CME, we’re adapting to the circumstances.

We are using Cisco as our broadcast platform, with the live stream available privately on YouTube. We are getting lots of questions thrown at us as new issues arise. We’re doing the best we can to collaboratively tackle any problems and seeing how things play out. The level of communication has been one of our greatest strengths, and the enthusiasm to creatively problem solve solutions during the current COVID-19 crisis has been enlightening. People are being extremely accommodating. We have invited several international experts to give virtual presentations to our clinicians during times that may not be the most convenient (ie, during the early morning or evening hours), and the response so far has always quickly been “No problem.”

Despite the chaos around us, we are doing our best to conduct business as normal (well, as normal as possible). Reliable, evidence-based education is always vitally important, and even with social distancing and travel bans, we can make it happen. This is the way our lives are going to be, at least for a little while, and it’s been heartwarming to see how flexible and kind the professional world has been. In times of crisis, we always tend to band together and find common solutions. My hope is that we all get through this together and forge a stronger bond for the betterment of our futures, both within CME and beyond.

Late last Friday, in a rare moment of pre-weekend creativity, I quickly jotted down a dual Twitter/LinkedIn post regarding advice for groups who are being forced to turn their live conference into an online event. More and more organizations seem to be going this route — just this morning, I read about another half-dozen or so larger meetings that canceled their live event and are going the online route. Medscape has a nice summary of all of the current cancellations, but things are changing by the hour as more groups assess their options.

(Quick aside: What does this mean for grant-funded satellite symposia at these cancelled live meeting? I don’t know – I’m not working on any of these. Feel free to share your experiences in the comments. I’m curious to know what groups are doing and what communications are ongoing between supporters/providers)

Anyway, as things continue to spiral worldwide with coronavirus, I thought I’d expand a little bit on the thoughts I shared via social media last week. Maybe Derek will even be inspired to add a comment or two of his own…(note from Derek: Nope. Busy.)

For those of you who are suddenly responsible for figuring out how to turn that live conference into an online event, a few pieces of advice after 6+ years of experience with CMEpalooza:

1. Rethink the format of your sessions. Some things don’t work online at all (problem solving in groups, for one), but some formats just need to be tweaked. Be creative and develop interesting ways to incorporate your faculty into your online sessions.

2. Consider opportunities for audience engagement. You can still use an audience response system. You can still take questions from attendees/viewers. You just need to figure out how to do it within the platform you want to use.

3. Expect some technology issues. You know how the microphone in that live conference room will sometimes buzz and you rush to find the AV tech? This is no different. There will be faculty whose audio doesn’t quite sync up with their video. There may be someone who mysteriously gets “kicked out” of the presentation room. Be upfront with your viewers in letting them know that things may not go perfectly. Prepare for the eventualities and learn to troubleshoot in real time (or work with someone who can).

4. Talk to your IT team and get their ideas. You want to hold concurrent sessions available to viewers through different links? You want to try Facebook Live? You want to experiment with something I’m not even smart enough to think of? Your IT people are the ones who hopefully are keeping up on online tech so don’t discount their input. If nothing else, there will likely be some infrastructure development necessary for your website, so you’ll be needing their help.

5. Keep in close contact with your faculty. Some of these people may have been waiting for years to present their groundbreaking research at your meeting. They are probably incredibly anxious wondering what’s going to happen now. Reassure them that you are working on a solution (you are, right?) that will still allow them the opportunity to be in the spotlight.

6. Consider the attention span of your attendees. Much as we may want to believe otherwise, Derek and I are smart enough to know that pretty much no one watches all 8 hours of CMEpalooza straight through. But then again, not many people will sit in sessions at a live meeting for 8 hours straight either. Be realistic with the expectations of your audience. If you have 2 or 3 “can’t miss” sessions, think about whether you want to bunch them together in one 90-minute block or space them out throughout the day. I don’t know that one solution is better than the other – depends on your audience.

7. Don’t throw up your hands and say “This won’t be as good as a live meeting.” That isn’t true. Different does not equate to worse. Hey, maybe you’ll be a hero and show that different can actually be better.