When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for two people to create an alternative means for educating individuals employed in the arena of continuous medical and healthcare education, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the creation of the palooza of CME.

We hold these three core CMEpalooza truths to be self-evident:

• That effective education should be fun
• That effective education should be easy to access
• That effective education should be free

We also hold these two coming soon CMEpalooza truths to be self-evident:

• That the CMEpalooza Fall agenda will be announced soon, hopefully by mid-July
• That we will update the CMEpalooza archive soon, hopefully before the CMEpalooza Fall agenda is announced

Lastly, we hold these next truths to be self-evident, even though they have little to do with CMEpalooza, but are equally important:

• That pineapple should not be on pizza
• That Han shot first
• That Coy and Vance Duke replacing Bo and Luke for season 5 of The Dukes of Hazzard in 1982 was an abomination that we will never speak of again
• That things have never been the same since David Lee Roth left Van Halen
• That the silver in the Dallas Cowboys helmets does not match the silver in their uniform pants
• That peanut butter should be the dominant ingredient in a PB&J
• That Pulp Fiction was robbed of a Best Picture award in the 1995 Academy Awards
• That Joan Jett did indeed love rock & roll
• That single malt Scotch should be served neat
• That Andie should have chosen Duckie over Blane
• That saying “go birds” as a response to anything and everything is still awesome

It’s always nice when our audience responds to our desperate plea to submit heart-wrenching letters looking for advice. Here is what rose to the top of the old Ask Us Anything mailbag this month.

REMINDER: If you have an issue (professional or personal) you want us to help with, you can click here to submit your question(s).

Dear Derek and Scott,

Besides CMEpalooza, what key resources would you recommend to help newcomers get oriented in the CE/CME/CPD industry?

Signed,

CE-nior Citizen

SCOTT: So I know that you said “besides CMEpalooza,” but let me first point you to a few archived sessions from our past that may be helpful to you:

• CME 101 (2018)
• CME Overview for the CME Professional (2019)
• The CME Dictionary (2020)
• Reaffirming Our Relevance: Myths and Misconceptions about CME and Implications for Our Industry (2023)

If that’s not enough for you, there are other options, some of which are also free and/or low cost.

The Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions (ACEHP) website offers a series of Cornerstone Modules that seem to provide a high-level overview of various key industry domains such as accreditation, program management, and adult learning theory. I have not personally watched any of these, so I cannot vouch for their quality. They are free for members, but cost $79 each for non-members. I am told they will all be updated in the near future; it’s unclear when the current modules were recorded, though they appear to be a few years old.

You can also find a variety of online webinars on the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) website. These can be a bit pricey, and again, I have not watched or heard any feedback on the quality of these, so proceed at your own risk.

If you have the funds and interest in attending a live event, the ACCME is holding their annual Accreditation Workshop in late August. The ACEHP typically hosts a pre-conference day for CME newbies around their annual conference, though details for 2026 are not yet available on their website. There are other industry events as well that may be appropriate for CME newbies but since I don’t want to mistakenly exclude anyone, I’ll just leave this list short.

Beyond formal educational opportunities like these, there are often regional chapter events (either live or online) that can be useful. Building a small professional network can be helpful if you have specific questions you need answered.

DEREK: Of course, Scott goes first and takes all the easy examples. Thanks for nothing, though I can’t get too upset with him after his stellar self-promotion of CMEpalooza to lead off his response.

I do have a couple additional resources for newcomers to consider:

• The Alliance Mentorship Program: It’s always nice to have a shoulder to lean on when facing a new challenge, so the Alliance Mentorship Program might be a good option for you. NOTE: Don’t let the fact that I was a mentor last year concern you about the quality of the program. I’m sure it was just due to some sort of administrative error.
• The CE Educator’s Toolkit: From the website: “The CE Educator’s Toolkit is a resource designed to equip educators with best practices and guidelines to deliver effective continuing education (CE). The toolkit was developed by the Society for Academic Continuing Medical Education (SACME) through an ACCME research grant in fulfillment of ACCME’s strategic goal to advocate for research and scholarship in continuing education.” And it’s free!
• LinkedIn: For me, LinkedIn now is what Twitter was 10-15 years ago: the social network I go to for my own professional development. There is a thriving CE/CME community and a vast network of resources being shared on a regular basis. It is well worth taking a few minutes of your time to connect with others in the community and read through your LinkedIn feed every so often. You might be surprised by what you learn.

Dear Scott and Derek,

My coworker thinks they are the smartest person in the room. How do I politely get them to accept my advice when I tell them they stink at communicating?

Yup,

Word Up

DEREK: This is an easy one. Just add the quote, “The smartest person in the room is never as smart as all the people in the room” to your email signature (make sure you italicize, bold, and color the text) every time you email your colleague, and they will quickly get the point. They might even start referring to you as the “Email Philosopher” and seeking you out directly for advice. Be careful what you wish for!

Another tip — and one that is perhaps a tad more serious — that I have found helpful when working with people who think they are the smartest person in the room but stink at communicating is to be a direct and blunt with them as possible. This is not really my preferred method of communicating, but it’s a style I’ve developed out of frustration when my normal, polite passive-aggressive mode has proved ineffective. Some people just need to be told directly to their face that what they are doing is annoying wrong, embarrassing, etc. It’s not that they don’t believe you when you tell them politely, but they are testing to see how strongly you believe what you are saying. They want to see how far they can push before you will back down. It took me quite a while to learn this.

SCOTT: These sorts of personality conflicts are one of the reasons I am quite glad that I don’t have to deal with office politics anymore. Who is upset/frustrated with who? Who is trying to get someone else fired? Whose mother isn’t really in the hospital with a serious illness but was instead seen lying on the beach on a day they “just couldn’t make it in”? No thank you.

While these days I only work with a small circle of people on a professional basis, I had plenty of run-ins with those who tried to assert their intellectual dominance earlier in my career (and yes, sometimes I was probably this person – my emotional intelligence took time to develop). Usually, this person would botch something badly and try to blame the issue on someone else, make the wrong person angry with their attitude (ie, their boss), and the situation would eventually correct itself with a pink slip. But in the meantime, I feel your pain, Word Up. While it’s great to surround yourself with smart people professionally, it’s always best when those people don’t flaunt their brilliance in your face and try to make you feel “lesser than.”

(Blows into microphone)

Testing…testing. Is this on? Can you hear me? Sibilance, sibilance…

OK, good. We’re back.

Yes indeed, after taking our usual post-Spring Palooza break (if only to prove to our families that their argument of “You love CMEpalooza more than you love us!!” isn’t true. Well, not entirely true), we figured it was time to rev up the old blog once again to let everyone in on what has been going on in the last few months.

First, Derek and I had our usual multi-day planning retreat at a secret island known only to locals and their second cousins where we poured over spreadsheets, survey data, demographic information, and prime numbers greater than 11 to come up with ideas for our Fall meeting. The only photo we were allowed to take is below — it comes from one of our working lunches. I’m not sure what happened to Derek’s salad – it looks like something Picasso would draw. I am fairly sure he kept eating after snapping this surreptitious photo (the island we were on prizes their secrecy and wants no one to know its existence outside of very special guests like us).

Fortunately, we were able to put down our forks long enough to come up with our usual cadre of ideas that, we promise you, will never ever be found on the agendas of other industry events. Sometime in the next few weeks, we’ll announce the availability of the first draft of our Fall agenda. There will be clowns, balloons, and maybe even a dunk tank at the site of the announcement. We’re working on it.

Second, did I mention that CMEpalooza Fall is taking place on Wednesday, Oct. 22? I don’t think I did. Well, it is. So mark your calendars please for a Professional Development day from 9 am-5 pm ET on Wednesday, Oct. 22. We promise it’ll be worth it.

Third, there is plenty to write about that has been happening in the CME circles in recent weeks, which we’ll get to eventually, but we’re also hoping to get a few nudges from our audience. That means that our Ask Us Anything hotline is officially back up and running again. This is where you get the chance to anonymously share your professional and/or personal issues (Derek is dying to offer his summer wardrobe tips) and we’ll provide our authoritative advice. But we can’t offer input if you don’t ask for any, so please, click here to Ask Us Anything.