Last Wednesday, Radiohead surprise released a new album (it isn’t really a new album, so to speak, but a new live album of old songs, which, as I always say, old Radiohead is better than no Radiohead) and gave me the great idea that I should surprise release a new CMEpalooza blog post to, you know, generate buzz, and guerilla marketing, and increase synergies, and whatnot, though it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun to do a suprise CMEpalooza blog post if I told Scott about the surprise CMEpalooza blog post, so I had to figure out a way to write up a surprise CMEpalooza blog post without telling him I was doing that, which is a little bit tricky since I usually send him a heads-up whenever I have a draft of a new post, so he can edit all my typos, crazy punctuation, and run-on sentences, which he is much better at than I am (don’t tell him I said that), but I can’t send him a heads-up of a surprise CMEpalooza blog post because then the surprise would no longer be a surprise and that would ruin most of the fun of it, which is why I decided to write the surprise CMEpalooza blog post as one long run-on sentence, because then the only punctuation I need to worry about is commas and parentheses and I mostly know how to use commas and parentheses (it’s those dastardly semicolons and em dashes that always get me) and also then I don’t need to bother with all those annoying rules of paragraph formation, like only one idea per paragraph, blah, blah, blah, geez, give me a break, I mean, if that Norwegian guy Jon Fosse can write a 700-page novel as one long winding sentence and win the dang Nobel Prize for Literature, than surely I can do the same for one surprise CMEpalooza blog post, though I have to admit that I have discovered one flaw in my plan for a surprise CMEpalooza blog post, which is that I don’t really have any particularly urgent or new news to share that is worthy of a surprise CMEpalooza blog post, making this, uh, all a bit awkward, unless, let me check, yes, yes, we do have a few new updates to the CMEpalooza agenda that I can report, including new information about the 4 PM Afternoon Snack Session (sponsored by Medscape), and additional faculty added for a couple of the other sessions, so please be sure to check out the updated CMEpalooza agenda if you have not done so recently and thank you for reading my surprise CMEpalooza blog post.

When people ask me what I enjoy most about my job, I usually tell that them it’s the daily and varied intellectual challenges I have to overcome. I like to problem solve and come up with creative ways to collect and disseminate information, whether that is through the education I help develop as part of my full-time role (ie, not CMEpalooza) or through what we do with our CMEpalooza blog and twice-annual extravaganzas. I get to work with smart people (yes, even you Derek) who push me to be the best version of myself and not take shortcuts just to “get things done.” Whether I want to or not, I am constantly learning and being forced to engage my brain on a daily basis.

But here is the problem: All of this can be mentally draining. Inevitably, I find myself running out of gas at about the halfway point of every year. I find every excuse to step away from my desk (“It’s nice outside. I should go for a walk to recharge my batteries. I promise to think about work while I’m traipsing around the neighborhood. Yeah, yeah, that’s it.”) and even when I am in my home office, I am not super productive or creative. The quality of my work suffers, which makes me grumpier than usual around the house. I’m just burnt.

Of course, we all know the solution to these issues: Summer vacation!

Every year, I hear stories about people’s international colleagues who are “sooo sooo lucky” that they set their OOO message to “I’ll be gone for the next 4 weeks. I don’t know and I don’t care who you contact in my absence, as long as it’s not me. Byeeeee!”

We all know that isn’t the way things work in the United States. First of all, many of us don’t get a month’s work of vacation days annually, and even if we do, they often have to be spread out throughout the year for our mental well-being. I was watching a rerun of The Office last week, and there was this great quote from Pam that summed things up well: “I get 10 vacation days a year, and I try to hold off taking them for as long as possible. And this year I got to… the third week in January.”

I hear you, Pam. I hear you.

That said, I am one of the multitude of Americans that takes my lengthiest vacation of the year with my family in the summertime. We did 2 weeks in Italy last year, which was frankly too much for me. I was getting extremely antsy to get home on the last few days, so I convinced my wife and son that 10 days would be our family sweet spot moving forward.

There is a ton of research focused on the restorative value of vacations. I won’t bore you with the details, but essentially, study after study has shown that taking a break from the daily grind — be it 3 days or 3 weeks — and going somewhere that isn’t your house can have substantial short-term benefits on work productivity and attentiveness. Some people will opt to sit on the beach for a week. Others will hike and camp in the wilderness. Others will drive a few hours to visit family and just sit around eating and drinking. Personally, I like seeing new cities, learning about their history and culture, and eating well. I learned in my 20s not to try to jam too much into a summer vacation, so our current vacation schedule usually involves one activity per day (ie, historic walking tour, hiking/kayaking/something else active, or something unique to the region) with plenty of downtime surrounding everything. Eventually, everyone figures out what works for them during vacation time — this is what works for us.

As you may have read in Derek’s most recent blog post, we spent our summer vacation in Sweden this year in late July-early August. From a vacation destination, it was a good trip. Not a great trip, but a good trip. The cities were clean, the downtown areas were very walkable, but the weather was extremely variable (cloudless and sunny at 9 am, ominous and rainy at 11 am was a normal day) and we had one tour guide who cancelled on us 15 minutes before we were supposed to meet because he “wasn’t feeling well” (the tour started at 2 pm and you just now are not feeling well? I’m not buying it, Ulf) (note from Derek: uh oh, bad news for Ulf. He’s definitely going to get a sternly worded Yelp review now.).

Regardless of our summer destination, I have a fairly predictable vacation routine from a work perspective. Since I am always the first person awake in our family, I’ll usually log onto my email while the others are sleeping and spend up to an hour addressing anything urgent. Basically, I’m just dealing with small details that don’t require a lot of mental acuity (so yes, no blog posts – sorry). I know that a lot of “experts,” as well as our European colleagues, suggest a total unplug from work, but my approach is what works best for me — I don’t have to worry that anything urgent is being unknowingly overlooked but I’m also not having to fully mentally engage. Plus, my inbox is fairly clean so I don’t have to worry about coming home to a lot of nonsense.

And you know what? By about day 5 of our recent trip, I started to feel intellectually unstuck. I actually jotted down a few ideas for future CMEpalooza blog posts so I’m not dreading the “Uh oh, what should I write about this week?” feeling that hit me earlier in the summer. I actually found myself looking forward to getting back into the rhythms of work.

Studies show that the mental and emotional restorative impact of vacations lasts about 3 weeks. I’ve been home now for 5 days. My wife will be glad to know I won’t be my usual grumpy self for a little bit longer.

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