Last week, I received an email from Scott informing me that he wrote up a blog post to let everyone know that we are doing CMEpalooza Trivia Night (again) at the Alliance Industry Summit (AIS). This was very generous of him to do, considering he is currently on vacation…somewhere (He told me where, but I don’t remember. Probably somewhere very expensive and glamorous like Monte Carlo or Bora Bora. Here’s a picture he sent me of him contemplating what to write for the blog):

(NOTE FROM SCOTT: We are in Sweden for 10 days – half in Stockholm, half in Gothenburg. If anyone wants to meet up to rag on Derek while I’m here, hit me up)

Despite being in vacation mode, he managed to crank out a very nice 1,500-word blog post about the importance of educators making a personal connection with unwilling learners. My only complaint is that readers had to scroll through nine paragraphs and 1,200 words before reaching the first mention of CMEpalooza Trivia Night. I’m flattered by the number of subscribers the CMEpalooza blog has (now well over 1,000), but I’m not enough of a blowhard to think that all of you read every single word we write. So, I’d like to reintroduce CMEpalooza Trivia Night just to make sure more of you are aware of it.

Here are the key details:

• WHAT: CMEpalooza Trivia Night
• WHEN: During AIS from 6-7:30 pm on Tuesday, Sept. 9
• WHERE: Hilton at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia (same location as AIS)
• WHY: Because it’s fun!,
• HOW: This is an excellent question. Typically for our trivia events we have five rounds of 5 questions. The first four questions of each round will be related to the theme of that round and the last question of each round will be a pop culture question.

Here is a general breakdown of the types of questions you will encounter during CMEpalooza Trivia Night (subject to change, etc., etc.):

Rounds 1, 2, and 4: Questions from AIS days 1 & 2. We try to create one question from each session from the first two days of AIS. If you are presenting on either of these days, we might be reaching out to you for help with developing a question from your session. As an example, this is one of the questions from last year’s CMEpalooza Trivia Night (I’ll put the answers at the very end.)

Which of the following was NOT mentioned by today’s Outcomes Panel as a way to leverage outcomes to showcase the value of medical education to your organization?

1. Develop a social media campaign
2. Have a poster gallery day
3. Create quarterly infographic outcomes reports
4. Present outcomes to internal stakeholders

Round 3: This is a special round dedicated to our sponsor for the evening, AcademicCME. All questions for this round will feature AcademicCME or AcademicCME-adjacent trivia. For example:

AcademicCME’s Tim Hayes and family vacation every summer in Ocean City, NJ. Which of the following “facts” about OCNJ is true?

1. It is the marlin fishing capital of the world
2. The city bylaws include a prohibition on painting any house within city limits purple
3. It is a “dry town,” prohibiting the sale of any alcohol within city limits
4. It is the birthplace of singer Frankie Avalon

Round 5: CME Wildcard! (I used an exclamation mark to make it sound more exciting!) This section will consist of general questions related to CME, AIS, the Alliance and/or the ACCME. Here is an example from last year:

Which one of the following does the Alliance suggest as a way to celebrate Healthcare Education Professionals Day?

1. Host an awards ceremony
2. Send out cards or e-cards
3. Give an extra day off
4. Make a large cash donation to CMEpalooza

Pop Culture Questions: As I mentioned previously, the last question of each round will be a pop culture question. We’re using “pop culture” as a bit of a catch-all term here. It basically means questions on any topic other than CME or AIS. It could be anything from TV shows to movies to history to sports to whatever. Since AIS is in our hometown, there’s a more than likely chance that these questions will have a Philly slant to them. Here is an example from last year:

Daryl Hall and John Oates, the founding members of Hall & Oates, met while attending which university?

1. Penn
2. Drexel
3. Villanova
4. Temple

Now that you know all about CMEpalooza Trivia Night, make your plans now to join us. There will be snacks. There will be prizes. We’ll be done in time for you to make your dinner reservation. See you in September!

ANSWER KEY: Correct answers in GREEN

Which of the following was NOT mentioned by today’s Outcomes Panel as a way to leverage outcomes to showcase the value of medical education to your organization?

1. Develop a social media campaign 
2. Have a poster gallery day
3. Create quarterly infographic outcomes reports
4. Present outcomes to internal stakeholders

AcademicCME’s Tim Hayes and family vacation every summer in Ocean City, NJ. Which of the following “facts” about OCNJ is true?

1. It is the marlin fishing capital of the world
2. The city bylaws include a prohibition on painting any house within city limits purple
3. It is a “dry town,” prohibiting the sale of any alcohol within city limits
4. It is the birthplace of singer Frankie Avalon

Which one of the following does the Alliance suggest as a way to celebrate Healthcare Education Professionals Day?

1. Host an awards ceremony
2. Send out cards or e-cards
3. Give an extra day off
4. Make a large cash donation to CMEpalooza

Daryl Hall and John Oates, the founding members of Hall & Oates, met while attending which university?

1. Penn
2. Drexel
3. Villanova
4. Temple

An argument can be made that Robert Caro – author of The Power Broker and the four volume The Years of Lyndon Johnson – is the greatest biographer, if not greatest writer of nonfiction, of the past century. The Power Broker celebrated its 50^th anniversary in print in 2024, including a special exhibit at the New York Historical Society (if you hurry, you can still visit. The exhibit closes the first week in August. It’s well worth the trip.). Meanwhile, the literary world eagerly (and somewhat nervously) awaits the fifth and final volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, which the 89-year-old Caro is still writing and for which he has not yet announced a release date.

There are many aspects of Caro’s writing that elevate him to the pantheon of “great”: his turn-every-page style of investigative journalism, the type of immense dedication to understanding his subjects that he willingly moves from NYC to the Hill Country of Texas to better comprehend the environment around LBJ’s formative childhood years. But for me, the reason I read anything Caro writes is his ability to make even the most mundane topics fascinating.

The Power Broker is a 1,300-page tome (and only limited to 1,300 pages because that was the maximum number of pages that could be bound in a single volume) about early-20^th century urban planning in NYC and the man who made it all happen (Robert Moses). It’s riveting and reads like a novel.

The Path to Power, the first volume of the LBJ series, opens with a lengthy overview of the Texas Hill Country landscape, including three pages dedicated solely to describing the wild grasses of the region. It’s captivating and sets the tone for the entire series.

Today we are releasing the mostly complete agenda for CMEpalooza Fall 2025 (Wednesday, October 22.) As usual, we have designed CMEpalooza with the same spiritual essence as a Robert Caro book: to be both informative and entertaining. Our goal is to take topics that, while important, can also be a bit dry if not presented appropriately and turn them into and enjoyable educational experiences for everyone.

You will see some of the standard topics on the agenda – accreditation standards, grant review, outcomes assessment, etc. – though all with a unique ‘Palooza spin. But you will also see some newer topics that we are featuring for the first time, such as social listening and utilizing circadian rhythm science in educational event planning. We’re happy with the blend of sessions and hope you will be too. And if you’re not, blame Scott.

We still have some pending information for a couple of the sessions and will be making updates over the next few weeks. For now, take a few minutes to peruse the agenda, block off your calendar for Wednesday, October 22, and enjoy the remaining weeks of summer!

Click here for the CMEpalooza Fall 2025 agenda!

It has been brought to my attention that my most recent blog entry, which I posted last Friday, was perhaps ill-timed considering that it was both a Friday and a national holiday. I acknowledge that the number of people excited to spend a portion of their day off reading a CMEpalooza-centric Declaration of Independence parody is likely minimal. However, I would argue that if one were to write a CMEpalooza-centric Declaration of Independence parody, the only day it should be posted is July 4. I regret nothing.

Furthermore, it has also been brought to my attention that there has been disagreement, if not outright disapproval, with some of the “additional” self-evident truths included at the end of the post. Apparently, there are some who believe that pineapple should be on pizza. There are some who think that David Lee Roth leaving Van Halen was not the nadir of civil society. There are even some who prefer more jelly than peanut butter on their PB&J. Heathens all. Once again, I regret nothing. In fact, here are a few more truths we hold to be self-evident, even though they have little to do with CMEpalooza:

• That dark chocolate is the best chocolate and white chocolate should be permanently banned
• That every college dorm room in the U.S. in the fall of 1991 was required to contain at least one (1) copy of Pearl Jam’s album Ten
• That the Wicked Witch of the West from the original Wizard of Oz still scares the everloving crap out of us
• That Frank Sinatra was the coolest
• That Charles in Charge was the worst show with the best theme song (note from Scott: I usually just shake my heads when Derek makes bold proclamations like this, but I must interject here, especially since Derek will soon lambast a different cast change. Charles in Charge actually dumped basically 75% of the cast after its first failed season since the original family was awful, with a very circumspect explanation of why a new family in the same house also needed a ‘manny.’ The second cast was much, much better and many episodes were entertaining. It was certainly a better show than Saved by the Bell, among others).
• That Fruit Stripe was the best gum with the shortest flavor life
• That if you were born in 1970, you were closer in time to the end of WWI (1918) than you were to today’s date
• That, after season 3 of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, they swapped out one Aunt Viv for another Aunt Viv and tried to act like nothing happened, but we noticed. We noticed.
• That Dumb & Dumber was robbed of a Best Picture award in the 1994 Academy Awards
• That Prince’s performance at the 2007 Super Bowl was, is, and forever will be the greatest halftime show ever

Also, I updated the CMEpalooza archive with all the sessions from CMEpalooza Spring 2025. Whoopee.