A few things to update you on:

1. There have been a few additions and adjustments to our Spring agenda. Most notably, you’ll see our Thursday lunch session sponsored by ACHL now has a title, full description, and faculty. It’ll be a unique session focused on the CME implications of the rise in legalization of medical marijuana across the United States. Both the president and CEO of the ACCME, Graham McMahon, as well the president of the ACEHP, Steven Kawczak, are confirmed as panelists. Should be interesting. And, of course, I couldn’t resist a few wisecracks based on the session topic (ie, “Let’s change the start of the session to 4:20” and “Gives a new meaning to the term ‘joint provider'”). Feel free to come up with one of your own in the Comments section below this post.

2. You have less than a week to submit your entry for CMEpalooza Pursuit. We’ve got $500 in Amazon gift cards to give away, but like anything else, you can’t win if you don’t participate. All of the information you need to play can be found in our recent post.

3. I had the “pleasure” of sitting next to Derek at a recent Philadelphia 76ers game. The dude is the most pessimistic “fan” I have ever met. The opposing team scored the first basket of the game and he grabbed his coat and was ready to leave. He wasn’t even kidding. As usual, I ignored him and he sat back down, only to moan and groan the remainder of the evening. The 76ers have lost only one home game since the start of the new year – I’ll let you guess which night that occurred on.

Happy spring everyone. The snow will melt eventually. I hope.

Trivia is trendy these days.

It seems like I get a text every month from a friend inviting me to sign up for one of the numerous live trivia games you can now play on your phone. Far as I can tell, the concept behind them all is similar – you answer a series of trivia questions of varying difficulty (ranging from “Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?” to “Who was the undertaker who dug the hole for Grant’s Tomb?”) in a certain amount of time and then, if you get them all right, you win a nominal amount of money. I occasionally play some of these games with limited success – it’s apparently a great time suck in many offices around the world.

As usual, our intern wizards were ahead of the curve when they suggested we develop a trivia-based CMEpalooza sponsor event several years ago. Just like today’s trendy copycats — lawsuits are pending — you are presented with a variety of questions related to the brilliant companies who sponsor CMEpalooza and then, when you answer them all correctly, you win money. Lots and lots of money (for reals, yo).

Today, we are proud to launch our Spring sponsor event, CMEpalooza Pursuit. As the name suggests, this is an adaptation of everyone’s pie-filled favorite, Trivial Pursuit. This year, we have divided questions into 7 categories – the 6 original game categories as well as an extra Potpourri category. With 20 sponsors of our Spring event, there were simply too many to try to jam in to the traditional boxes. Plus, extra learning for you!

Here is how CMEpalooza Pursuit works:

1. Click here to download the list of questions
2. Click here to download the entry form
3. Use the Sponsor tab of the CMEpalooza website to get links to all of the companies involved in this event. You’ll need to visit the Sponsor sites to get the answers to all of our questions. We promise there is nothing that can’t be found within a click or two.
4. Complete the entry form by coming up with a correct response to one question in each category. That’s seven questions/answers in all. Now, we have had some brown nosers who have tried in the past to answer more than the required amount of questions, which is fine. It just won’t help you win.
5. Send your completed entry form to me via email at scott@medcasewriter.com by 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday, April 4.
6. Cross your fingers.

We’ll be giving away $500 in Amazon gift cards this Spring – there will be 8 winners of $25, 4 winners of $50, and 1 grand prize winner of $100. Unlike some of the more mainstream trivia apps, there aren’t thousands of people expected to complete CMEpalooza Pursuit. If you play, your chances are reasonably good of winning a prize (no promises though).

And…go.

The development process for CMEpalooza Spring goes through more changes than Derek’s demeanor (yes, it looks like a perpetual “I am totally checked out of life,” but there are subtle nuances). One year, we invite abstracts from the public. The next year, we don’t. One year, we have our adoring tolerating public vote for their favorite abstracts. The next year, we use a double-secret process that involves votive candles and a Ouija board. I’m one of the people who decides these annual changes, and it’s becoming hard for even me to keep track of.

One thing, fortunately, that has not changed is the overall quality of our education. Thanks to the creative folks in the CME community, we have consistently been able to provide innovative education — FOR FREE — to our adoring tolerating audience.

And so, once again, we proudly present the agenda for another iteration of CMEpalooza Spring. You may notice that this year’s agenda is split into two days (we announced how that will work several weeks ago). You may notice that a few items are TBA (but not many). You may notice that there are sessions that focus on a variety of aspects of CME planning, development, and measurement (we did that on purpose).

In the end, though, all we really hope is that you notice how you can’t possibly miss a single session of CMEpalooza Spring and set yourself up for a “long lunch” on Wednesday, April 25 and Thursday, April 26. You’ll still have time to work before and after our sessions. Just not a lot.

Quick aside: Derek came home from a weekend jaunt with the family to find his Internet connection was down (“because of squirrels or something stupid like that”). Who wants to bet that “something stupid like that” is that he didn’t realize that dial-up connections are no longer being supported by his service provider? And yes, that annoying sound of your dial-up Internet successfully connecting will be ping ponging in your brain for a while. [Note from Derek: Fake news. Per the Verizon guy working on the line, a squirrel was definitely the culprit. This may come as a shock to some of you, but after being told last night that the line would be fixed “in a couple hours,” it is still not fixed this morning. Does anyone have an extra AOL startup CD laying around?]