Despite boldly announcing at the beginning of today’s interview with Wendy Turell, Associate Director, Global Medical Affairs Oncology, Scientific Engagement at Daiichi Sankyo, that this was the last in our “10 Years in 10 Minutes” series, I later realized that it is actually, in fact, not the last one. It is the fifth of six, the last of which will be on Wednesday. Those of you who have been following along closely might remember that I also made a mistake at the beginning of my interview with Brian McGowan a couple weeks ago. The lesson here is that I should probably refrain from talking during these interviews and limit myself to hand gestures and nodding along.

Nevertheless, I was thrilled to have a few minutes to talk with Wendy about her presentation at the inaugural CMEpalooza on Qualitative Research and CEHP. Wendy and co-presenter Alex Howson from Write Medicine were the first “panel” presentation at CMEpalooza (can two people make a panel? Let’s say yes), the success of which helped show some of the possibilities of the Google Hangouts On-Air format. At the same time, Wendy was the first presenter who suffered serious technical issues, to the point that I thought Alex might have to do the presentation on her own, and helped show some of the challenges with the format (side note: if you watch the original presentation, you can see Wendy make a sudden dramatic appearance on screen, tech issues resolved, popping on just as I begin the introductions. High stakes drama!)

Wendy and I discuss all of these things, plus her thoughts on the value of qualitative research in CME today, why we are still fighting the same battles 10 years later, and even a tip for a fun family vacation spot. All that in a neat 10 minutes.

 

Next up on our 10 Years in 10 Minutes interview series is my friend and former colleague from two different stops on our CME journey (Thomas Jefferson University and Pfizer) Beth Brillinger. Beth’s presentation at the first CMEpalooza was on Activity Planning: Improving the Process to Align with Accreditation Criteria and wrapped up in a crisp 16 minutes. While I would never go back to the days of letting presenters choose any random length of time for their presentations, there definitely is something to be said for the type of short informative sessions that Beth and a couple of others did. Maybe instead of eight 1-hour sessions we should do thirty-two 15-minute session? I can hear Scott grinding his teeth from here…

We cover the standard topics during the interview, along with a quick career check-in. Anyone who knows Beth knows she is longtime motorhead, so I couldn’t help finishing up the interview with a little Formula 1 talk. Check out the full interview below.

As I mentioned in Wednesday’s post, over the next few weeks we will be highlighting 10 years of CMEpalooza through an interview series we are calling 10 Years in 10 Minutes. Today, I am happy to share the first in this series, my interview with Brian McGowan, Chief Learning Officer  Co-Founder at ArcheMedX (side note: he will also be playing the role of Coach Beard in the Ted Lasso-themed session Be Curious, Not Judgmental of Your Data at CMEpalooza Spring on April 24. Don’t miss it!)

It was an easy decision to run Brian’s interview first as he was the very first person to ever present at CMEpalooza, covering the topic of Why Adult Learning Theory Is Insufficient to Drive Learning. We talk about his original session, its relevance today, his experience presenting at the first CMEpalooza and, of course, what he’s currently binge watching. I’m impressed we kept it to 15 minutes.

While we discuss it during the interview, I also wanted to highlight here the first words Brian spoke when beginning the first presentation at the first CMEpalooza.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for doing this. I really think that we’re going to look back a few years from now and realize you’re doing something that adds so much value to what this community needs.

Inspiring words that I needed to hear at that moment. Brian is the best. I hope you enjoy the interview.

(Note: During my introductory remarks I mention that the first CMEpalooza was in May. That is obviously incorrect since the first CMEpalooza was in March, a fact that I am well aware of. Why did I say May? I have no idea. Let’s all chalk it up to a brain fart and move on with our day, OK? OK.)