It was during my 8-week residency at Penn Therapy and Fitness on Market Street in West Philadelphia that I began to wonder if I had made a terrible mistake. I had just one more rotation to go and then I would graduate from Thomas Jefferson University with a Master of Science degree in Physical Therapy. Riding the Market Street line home to my dinky apartment in Center City after another frustrating day of massive amounts of paperwork and constant lecturing by my supervisor, I was forced to confront the reality of my situation: I hated what I was doing and I hadn’t even started a real job in my field yet.

Despite my growing trepidation, I did finish out my residencies and graduated, never talking to anyone about my growing concerns about my chosen career path. For the next year, I worked numerous odd jobs while mailing out over 80 resumes (yes, you used to have to mail out resumes in the pre-Internet days) for any and every position a freshly graduated physical therapist could apply for in the Philadelphia region, all for naught. On the bright side, the temp agency I was working for at the time sent me all over Philly, so it was a great opportunity to explore a city that I quickly grew to love.

(Extended note from Scott: Am I the only one who finds it impossible that Derek was actually a physical therapist for like, a split second.

“Um, excuse me, am I doing this right?”

“Um, yeah, uh sure. Sorry, I was looking at another 76ers blog. You look fine to me.”

I think we all agree he made the right career choice.)

In the fall of 2000, I was assigned a temp job in the continuing medical education office at Thomas Jefferson University (TJU). I was back at my alma mater. My one-week assignment turned into two weeks, then 1 month, then 3 months. By this point, I was completely disheartened with the idea of searching for a job that I was no longer sure I even wanted. I had also reached the point that for numerous reasons, most of them financial, I had to find more permanent employment. A full-time position opened up in the CME office, and I took it.

I can still remember the job title: Secretary B. My main tasks were tons of data entry and assisting with the logistics and setup for live meetings. Our office was two floors directly below the room where I had just had gross anatomy lab 18 months before. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to have the work. But I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a humbling experience to come back to TJU in that capacity, rather than in the position for which they had trained me. My doubts about being a physical therapist were replaced by even sharper doubts about the decision I had made to leave it behind to be, well, Secretary B. I spent many hours that first year banging away at a beige keyboard, entering registration info and evaluation results, Radiohead’s Kid A blasting out of my headphones to drown out that inner voice asking me “What have you done?”

Fast-forward 17 years to the summer of 2018…and things at that time have worked out pretty well. My career in CME has had some ups and downs, but has steadily progressed. My parents no longer regularly ask me if I’m considering going back to work in physical therapy. I have a job that I like and help produce a pretty cool online conference called CMEpalooza that other people seem to enjoy. I can’t complain.

A friend from across the street texts me – “Radiohead is coming to Philly. Let’s go!” I’m in, I text him. Then he sends me the ticket prices and I am aghast. There is no way, NO WAY, I am paying that much to go to a concert. I’m out, I text him back.

But I keep thinking about it and thinking about it. I really want to go. I double-check my bank account and then I talk to my wife. You should go, she tells me. I’m back in, I text my friend back.

And so I go to the Radiohead concert, paying way too much for my ticket, and have an amazing time. Towards the end of the concert, the opening beats from “Idioteque” – my favorite song from the Kid A album – start up and I realize to my embarrassment that I have tears streaming down my face. I know this sounds rather mawkish and trite, but all I can think about is how lost and overwhelmed I felt while listening to that song over and over again as Secretary B and how far I have come since then. The moment got to me.

I think about that moment often whenever we start preparing for the next CMEpalooza. I might still be Secretary B at TJU if it wasn’t for access to professional development resources that helped me advance my career (and I would be remiss not to also mention the value of a strong mentor, who in my case was the wonderful Jeanne Cole, recently retired Director of CME at TJU.)  My hope is that CMEpalooza can in some small way be a help to those just starting their careers. We have a ton of resources in our archive, but if there is something you think we are missing that would of value to you, please feel free to reach out and let me know.

Tomorrow night, I am going to hear a Radiohead tribute band that is playing Kid A in its entirety. I don’t think I’ll get teary-eyed this time, but it should be an excellent reminder to me of why we continue on with CMEpalooza. Here’s to keeping everything in its right place.

OK, yes, I realize another blog post about the Alliance conference two weeks after its conclusion isn’t exactly timely, but my Christmas break was kind of crappy so I decided to treat myself to a few extra days in northern California after the conference, cruising around Sonoma Valley with friends and family, gazing at big trees, and drinking too much wine. Scott wrote something while I was away, then we wanted to introduce everyone to Katie, and now here we are. I’m certainly not going to let a great good OK idea for a blog post go to waste, so better late than never!

Number of Alliance conferences I have attended: 16 (I started going in 2002 and have only missed a couple, so I think that number is correct)

Number of Alliance conferences I have attended in San Francisco: 6 (or 7, it’s somewhere around there)

Number of scheduled meetings I had at this year’s conference: 14 (one of the true miracles of the conference is that despite my complete befuddlement with scheduling meetings while dealing with the ET/PT time change, I somehow never double-booked myself. Not all heroes wear capes…)

Number of sessions I attended at this year’s conference: um…2.5 (hey, I had a lot of meetings!)

Number of times I strolled down Mission Street to Blue Bottle Coffee: 4 (this has nothing to do with the number of sessions I attended)

Number of New Orleans cold brews I purchased at Blue Bottle Coffee: 3 (the best cold brew I have ever had)

Number of times I walked to City Lights Bookstore: 2 (one of my favorite bookstores in the country)

Number of books purchased at City Lights Bookstore: 3 (Drinking at the Movies by Julia Wertz, The Captain and the Glory by Dave Eggers, and Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg)

Number of CME-related parodies of Howl I wrote on my old blog: 1 (And you thought I was crazy writing a story about a CME detective. Just wait until I update and re-post my Google Hangouts themed ghost story. You think I’m kidding…)

Number of books I swapped at Integrity CE’s exhibit booth (a very cool idea): 3 given (The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson, and City of Thieves by David Benioff) , 1 taken (Milkman by Anna Burns)

Number of times I listed books in this blog post just because I know it will annoy Scott: 2 (I’m laughing just thinking about him reading this and yelling “Nobody cares!” <insert laugh-crying emoji>)

(NOTE FROM SCOTT: He’s right. It annoyed me.)

Number of times I skipped a reception at this year’s conference to go to a sports bar and watch the Sixers beat the Boston Celtics: 1 (totally worth it!)

Number of times I told the person I was watching the game with that the Sixers were definitely going to lose (they won): 5 (at least, probably more)

Number of meetings at the Alliance conference Scott and I had with Katie the Intern: 1

Number of times I wondered if Katie could now do all my CMEpalooza work for me: How do you insert the infinity sign in WordPress?

Number of people I knew from CMEpalooza but met in person for the first time at this year’s Alliance conference and didn’t immediately recognize because I realized I had only ever seen them from the chest up and they were taller/shorter than I realized: 3

Number of people I met through attending the Alliance conference over the years who I now call “friend”: too many to count (seeing old friends is my favorite part of going to the Alliance conference every year)

 

 

A few weeks ago, we announced that we were going to be bringing a new voice into CMEpalooza by opening up applications for a CMEpalooza Spring intern. We were surprised and humbled by the number of applicants we received – let’s face it, the fact that anyone would voluntarily want to work alongside us is kind of surprising.

Anyway, after a rigorous review and interview process, we selected Katie O’Connell, a senior CME event coordinator at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York as our Spring 2020 intern. God help her.

Special note: This has been edited by Scott for “accuracy.” Perhaps you’ll be able to figure that out.

Additional Special note (from Derek): All credit to Scott for coming up with the CMEpalooza intern idea, though I do wonder if this is part of his secret master plan to find a replacement for me. He’ll miss my haikus when I’m gone…

Hello CMEpalooza!

Katie O’Connell here reporting for her FIRST EVER CMEpalooza post! Scott, I’m still honored and excited that I was chosen, but now that this is becoming a reality, I am extremely nervous. My hands are shaking so much I just typed “RYXHYJLHG UYTHF” instead of “Scott is funnier than Derek.”

At the recently completed Alliance meeting, Megan Swartz spoke to the question of “How did I get here?” during her acceptance speech for the Frances M. Maitland Memorial Mentorship Lecture and Award (Congratulations again, Megan!!), so I figured I’d start out by answering that question.

So how did I get here?

It was a cold, snowy winter morning in the Bronx, NY, on Jan. 16 (let’s ignore the year, shall we?). The doctors told my mom on Jan. 15 to “Enjoy your weekend. There is no way the baby is coming early.” But then, SURPRISE. She took me home to a place that seemed huge as I was growing up (a recent visit proved otherwise). I enjoyed Irish dancing, karate, basketball, and softball growing up.

Oh, wait, you don’t really care how I actually got here as a person on this planet? You just want to want to know how I got here, like, how I ended up in CME. OK, fine, let’s jump forward to my CME journey.

As with many of us in this field, I ended up in CME not by choice but by accident. I graduated college with a bachelor’s degree in human resources and started working at a healthcare staffing agency. I joined Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2014 where I worked in the human recourses department as an onboarding coordinator. It wasn’t long before I found the job to be repetitive and sought out new challenges. Sensing my boredom, the Vice President of Human Resources asked me if I was interested in helping out the CME department with a project. That project turned into a new career.

So here I am 3.5 years later, where almost every day I learn something new, and now I get the opportunity to learn and engage my peers in a whole new outlet that I’m excited and nervous about (ugh, I meant to write “Scott is smarter than Derek” and it came out “GHRFJKK GRUYKIG NHTDJK”).

I enjoy reading the CMEpalooza posts and watching the videos not just because they add laughter to my day but because I always take something away from them. I had read the post about the CMEpalooza intern and thought that would be new and exciting, but shrugged it off at first. Then I woke up the morning of the deadline thinking about the CMEpalooza intern opportunity and thought, “What do I have to lose? They probably won’t pick you anyway.” Well, to my shock, they did! Thank you, Scott and Derek, for the opportunity. I hope to live up to everyone’s expectation of the first ever CME Spring Intern. If anyone wants to share what those expectation are, please do!  I’ll try my best to be little bit funny and bring AHA moments to your day.