Week 2 (or more) of the virtual workplace is kicking in for most of us. Hopefully everyone is settling in to some sort of regular work routine. But between video calls with the team and tedious administrative work, you are probably looking for some kind of fun distraction that doesn’t involve “Netflix recommends for you…”

Well then, my friend, you have come to the right place. Not only do we have a fun distraction for you this week, but we have a brand-new event that will even allow you to make some money for very little work and learn a bit about the CME community. Amazing, right?

Since we began rolling out our Sponsor prize events each year, the roster has typically been the same — CMEpalooza Trivial Pursuit in the Spring and CMEpalooza Bingo!! in the Fall. Why? Laziness. That’s about it.

But with the current health pandemic, I had a little bit of extra time last week to come up with a brand new idea. And so, we present to you today CMEopoly. I know, it’s not a great name. But would CMEpalopoly or CMEpaloozopoly have been better? Did Derek offer any alternate suggestions? The answer to both of those questions is shockingly one and the same…(note from Derek: This is so easy. It should be “CMonopolE”. Do I get the $500 now?)

As always, we’re giving away $500 in Amazon gift cards as prizes. Five winners will get $100 each. In the current marketplace, that could buy you a roll of toilet paper, one small bottle of Purell, and a Whatchamacalit bar (I love those).

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” (thanks to intern Katie for her help with these), and an answer sheet.
2. Call up our Sponsor page, where you can get information about all of the CMEpalooza Spring sponsors as well as links to their website (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 every color bundle you complete. There are seven bundles in all. We came up one short of filling the board, so Derek asked me to insert something silly in there. You can complete the answer sheet for one color bundle, two bundles, or all seven.
4. While you can earn seven entries, you won’t be able to win seven times. Limit one prize per person.
5. When you complete your answer form, 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.

Unlike the McDonald’s Monopoly game scandal from the early 2000s (I highly suggest HBO’s recent McMillions docuseries if you want a 5-hour binge show), CMEopoly is not rigged. Every entrant has the same chance of winning. These chances are generally pretty good, but vary depending on the number of entrants.

Entries are due on Wednesday, April 1 at 5 p.m. ET. Now get cracking.

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.