10. It’s the same cost whether one person from your organization attends or 50 people from your organization attend: nothing.

9. Dude, have you seen our agenda? I mean, c’mon…

8. Tell your boss you won’t be in because you’re watching CMEpalooza Fall at home. Spend the day curled up on the couch with your laptop, pajamas, and a cup of fair-trade, locally roasted, recently ground, French-pressed coffee (or watch from your office in a suit with a cup of crappy Keurig coffee if that’s what floats your boat.)

7. So we can tell our sponsors that lots of people watched (hey – at least I’m being honest.)

6. Three words: CME. Pecha. Kucha. Or is that five words? Is it one word for each letter since CME is an acronym? Five words: C. M. E. Pecha. Kucha. Forget it, let’s move on…

5. No sessions with “QI” in the title. Look, by no means am I poo-pooing the QI movement currently sweeping CME nation, but it does seem like we go through phases where a certain subject is the “hot topic” of the moment and we get one session after another about it at the various conferences we go to. A few years ago it was REMS. More recently it was the Sunshine Act. Now it’s QI. When Scott and I were putting together the agenda, we purposely stayed away from any QI-centric sessions, just to give people a bit of a break.

4. The scuttlebutt around the water cooler has it that Scott will be doing a how-to demo of the “Nae Nae” during one of the sessions. I can’t comment on the accuracy of this report or predict during which session it might happen, but I recommend watching them all just in case.

3. Get a new perspective on common issues. Are you frustrated with your faculty? Annoyed with the grant review process? Confused by millennials? Clueless about patient education? Bored with Moore’s outcome levels? Stumped by grand rounds? CMEpalooza Fall will touch on each of these topics and, hopefully, bring some fresh ideas for you to put into practice.

2. Because it’s gonna be good. I promise.

1. Have I mentioned it’s free?

In the “one take” land of CMEpalooza, there are no do-overs. When we make a mistake, we just go with it. It’s kind of our thing. Everything may not always be polished and flawless, but that’s what (at least we hope), makes us a bit more real.

You’ll see what I mean in our latest moderator interview when I continually butcher our moderator’s name. So sit back, grab yourself a box of Goobers, and enjoy “The Best and Worst of… Annette Donawa.”

Dr. Donawa will be moderating the anchor session of CMEpalooza Fall, entitled “Grand Rounds in the 21st Century: Fixing the Historical Model.” The session is being sponsored by Paradigm Medical Communications. It’s a session that came about as a result of learner comments from our Spring session, so don’t think we don’t listen to you!

In about 48 hours, Pope Francis is going to be at my door. OK, maybe he won’t quite make it to my front step, but he’ll be only a few blocks away from my house in downtown Philadelphia, which is close enough in my book.

While I have no specific vested interest in his visit, it’s been fascinating to see everything come together in recent months. It’s been an extraordinary, once-in-a-decade preparation. Some of my neighbors are up in arms at the inconveniences Pope Francis’ visit is causing them – road closures, school closures, etc. – while others are eagerly anticipating his visit to see exactly what this is going to bring to our city.

They are saying there will be 1 million-plus people flooding in on Sunday, and maybe half of that on Saturday for the public party on the Ben Franklin Parkway. Obviously, accommodating that many people takes a lot of planning and a lot of creativity. There have been many hiccups leading up to the event regarding communication to the public, but my hope is that, in the end, everyone will agree that, “You know what? That actually went pretty well and was pretty fun.”

In a much, much smaller way, it’s the same way that Derek and I approach CMEpalooza (for those of you wondering “How the heck is he going from the Pope to CMEpalooza?” there you go). We start planning months in advance, crossing our fingers that the CME community will allow us to intrude on their days to help us develop and deliver what we hope are fascinating events. It’s a little less that a month until CMEpalooza Fall on Wednesday, October 21, and we are both once again amazed with all of the creative ways our panels are working on their sessions.

You’ll be hearing more in coming weeks about a session that is entirely case based and another entirely driven by questions from learners. We’ll be trying out a flipped classroom session and another that uses a pecha kucha model. We guarantee that you won’t be bored, and we’re hoping for another “You know what? That actually went pretty well and was pretty fun” kind of event.

If it can happen for the pope, it can happen for us, right?