A few years ago, I tried to talk a few colleagues of mine into presenting a session at a live conference entitled something like “Humor in Medical Writing.” They laughed me off. (Insert rimshot).

“What exactly is funny about medical writing?” they asked. “Wouldn’t this session last like, I dunno, 20 seconds or so?”

Instead of grumbling and arguing, I let those crumbums burst my bubble and shelved the idea. Temporarily.

But dammit, there have been too many funny things happening to me lately professionally to simply let it go forever. And so today, we step aside from our usual veiled promotion for CMEpalooza Spring (it’s coming up in about a month for those of you who care, on Wednesday, April 17) so that we can all share a recent (ha ha) #CMEstory.

There were about 3 or 4 I had to choose from, but this is the one I settled on:

A few months ago, I flew down to Florida to oversee the filming of a series of enduring activities. For one of the broadcasts, our faculty – a pair of rheumatology nurse practitioners – were discussing a case involving a new patient that had recently come to one of their practices. Let’s listen in.

“Today’s case involves a 15-year-old male who presented with joint pain of approximately 1 year’s duration that has recently worsened. He is in good general health overall and had no unusual childhood illnesses to speak of.

During our initial exam, the patient noted about an hour of daily morning stiffness in the fingers, elbows, toes, knees, and back. He specifically emphasized decreasing strength and flexibility in his right wrist that prevented him from enjoying certain activities.”

The case went on for another 10 minutes or so as the faculty discussed the possible diagnosis, how they would approach treatment, and so on. When the discussion ended, I went up to them with just one general comment.

Me: “So you do realize which sorts of ‘certain activities’ this patient was talking about having trouble enjoying due to impaired grip strength in his right wrist, don’t you?”

Pause for a second. Here comes a quizzical look.

Two seconds. Trying to figure out what I’m talking about.

Three seconds. Light bulb goes on.

Four seconds. Blushing begins.

Five seconds. Uproarious laughter.

Them: “Oh my God, I hadn’t even thought of that. But you are absolutely right.”

Put that in your differential diagnosis file, people.

So that’s my recent simple (ha ha) #CMEstory. Add yours in the Comment section below. Everyone could use a laugh.

Participation is recommended but totally optional for everyone but Derek (it’s about time he supported one of my ideas).

As long as it’s not another of his hilarious, “You’ll never guess what happened in last week’s Grant Review Committee meeting” anecdotes. I swear if I have to hear one more story about the multi-hued sweater that Gary the medical director wore, I’ll… well, I won’t be happy.

Back when CMEpalooza started, Derek and I were both in a funny place professionally.

His most recent employer – a medical education company (MECC) whose name you can probably find on his LinkedIn page if you are really interested – had gone under, and he was trying to figure out the next step in his professional career. While the career of “Derek Warnick – CME Consultant” only lasted a short while before he realized he’d be better off with, you know, a job with a regular paycheck and health insurance and all, that stretch plays a very important role in the history of CMEpalooza.

Consultant Derek was, as usual, sitting alone in the corner during an “audience participation” session at the annual Alliance conference thinking deep thoughts.

“Why can’t I put together a conference like this (only better)?”

“Who can I convince to buy dinner for me tonight?”

“Did ALF ever make it back to Melmac?”

We’ll ignore the last two questions for the time being, and focus on the first one, which was obviously the seedling from which CMEpalooza grew. With lots of time on his hands (alas, the life of a newbie “consultant”), Derek was able to go home and think more about his idea of a CME “free-for-all” conference. He bounced the idea off a few colleagues who presumably responded, “Great idea” (or at least that’s what Derek tells me. I have my suspicions) and off he went.

Derek heard from someone that there was a person in the CME world (i.e., me) using this newfangled, and most importantly, free platform called Google Hangouts to live-stream certified education, and he thought, “Huh, maybe this is what I can use.” From there, the pieces fell into place. He came up with a catchy title for the conference, used WordPress to develop a website – this very website we still use today — and basically said to anyone who wanted to present at the inaugural CMEpalooza, “Go for it. I’ve got nothing better to do.”

What, you were expecting a story that involved a business plan, heavy-hitting investors, and accomplished advisers? Surely you know us better than that.

Anyway, while Derek was toiling away at the inaugural CMEpalooza, my employer – a different MECC – was also going under. In a few months, my self-employed career took launch and I too was left with a little too much time on my hands. I sat down with Derek one afternoon and agreed to come aboard as co-producer/co-director/co-something of CMEpalooza (actual transcript of the negotiation: “Me: Do you want help with CMEpalooza?” “Him: “OK.”).

The first order of business for us was to come up with an agenda for our first Fall meeting. Unlike the inaugural CMEpalooza where Derek allowed everyone with any semblance of an idea onto the agenda, it was deemed that we should tighten the reins a little bit for the future and come up with some topics people in the industry would be interested in. With our recent professional history, one of the first sessions we hit on was entitled, “Death of the MECC: Fact or Fiction?” Yes, it was somewhat of an autobiographical topic that hit close to home for both of us, but there was legitimate concern in some MECC circles that our days were numbered.

Jan Perez of CME Outfitters gratefully agreed to moderate this session and recruited a panel from a cross-section of providers to delve into the current and future state of the MECC. As with every CMEpalooza throughout our history, you can watch the session in our Archives (or just click here). To this day, it’s one of my favorite sessions in our history.

Five years later, the MECC model is facing a whole new set of challenges, although fortunately things overall seem to have stabilized since Derek and I had our career crisis (wait a minute, were we the reason our respective MECC employers failed? Let’s not dwell on that too much. Moving on…). As we celebrate the 5-year anniversary of CMEpalooza, we thought it’d be a good idea to revisit that session from our inaugural Fall meeting with a new spin. We’re calling it “The MECC Reborn: Our Present and Future.” It’s on the Spring agenda. There will likely be a “redux” session or two in the Fall as well.

Jan Perez graciously agreed to moderate this session once again (actual transcript from the email invite, “Me: Will you moderate this again? Her: Do I have to?” I kid, I kid). I think it’ll be fascinating to get a sense of where some of our industry leaders see the future of the MECC world heading.

Probably not to Melmac.

Big day for our team of crack interns. They have put in dozens of hours of unpaid overtime over the last few weeks categorizing and collating the many, many abstracts submitted for our Spring event, routing everything to the appropriate team of judges for evaluation, tabulating results, and then inputting everything into a very intricate spreadsheet.

I think I saw Derek pop his head into the interns work area one afternoon just after lunch last week and say, “Good job boys and girls. Extra credit for all of you,” before ducking back out into the game room for another marathon session of Frogger. He’s quite the motivator. (Side note from Derek: I will kick anyone’s butt in Frogger on the Atari 2600. Challenge extended.)

Anyway, we tapped the kegs, cued up a little Digital Underground, and let out a massive “Huzzah!” around 10 p.m. last night when we finally slotted the last session into the Spring agenda. The website was then quickly updated with all of the information so that our adoring (yes, you love us) public can stop with the phone calls, emails, and faxes telling us to, “Get off your lazy butts, and give us an agenda!”

So here is the official Agenda for CMEpalooza Spring (or click on the Spring 2019 tab). There is some good stuff from some new faces (and some old ones too) that we think you’ll enjoy.

Remember, Wednesday, April 17. Highlight it on your calendar.

A few things to note:

• After experimenting with dividing CMEpalooza Spring into two half-days last year, we’re back to a full day this year. While people told us on surveys that they would be more likely to watch our sessions if they were split into two days, the actual viewership didn’t bear that out. Numbers don’t lie. Plus, it makes our lives a bit easier mushing everything together in one big lump.
• There is a open slot at noon ET for the first time in a long while. Is it because Derek and I want a break to grab some lunch? While yes, that would be nice (my lunch usually consists of a scarfed down bowl of Corn Chex between sessions on our broadcast days), the truth is that we’re still looking for a Gold sponsor who wants to claim that session. Anyone? Anyone at at all?
• Because this is a fifth anniversary of CMEpalooza, we will be having a “redux” session in both the Spring and Fall meetings where we revisit a topic from our first year of Palooza-ing. This spring, we’re bringing back Jan Perez from CME Outfitters to moderate a session looking at the business side of the medical education company (MECC) and how things continue to evolve. More on this in a later blog post.

Rejoice, everyone, rejoice. And join Derek in the game room at 3 p.m. today with a pocket full of quarters, ready for play Burger Time into the wee smalls of the evening.