The CMEpalooza Spring countdown is into the single digits (9 days from today!), which means that our presenters are starting to get serious thinking about their sessions. Derek and I aren’t meanies who require slides weeks and months in advance. Not that either of us has created a presentation on a plane the day before the event — no, of course not, not us — but we recognize that it happens sometimes. To other people. Not us. No, of course not.

Nonetheless, we are always impressed with those presentation teams who get their acts together weeks in advance and start coming up with a semi-formal agenda. One of those teams — our 3 p.m. ET session focused on Style and Substance:  The Evolution of Content Presentation in Medical Education — is asking for input from our prospective viewing audience to help guide their session.

If you can please take a few minutes to click on the following link — www.infograph-ed.com/palooza-presentation.html, you’ll be asked to review a few potential presentation components and complete a quick quiz. Consider it your personal favor to us for the day.

Today on the blog, we spend a few minutes with Greg Liptak, President of Intelligent Medical Decisions. Inc., a gold sponsor of CMEpalooza Spring. Greg will be moderating the kickoff session of CMEpalooza Spring at 9 a.m. ET on Wednesday, April 8, bringing together an unique collection of panelists to talk about Bridging the Knowing-Doing Gap: Quality Improvement as a Path to Change.

Greg was dealing with some car issues on the day of our interview — hence the tagline of “Burning Rubber” beneath his name — but he rallied to rev up his engine of wisdom and share his CME story. Among the things you’ll learn about:

• Why Greg lives in the greatest neighborhood in the greatest city in the United States (ie, Fairmount in Philadelphia, but I needn’t have told you that)
• “The girl who got away…” and how we have love to thank (or blame) for bringing both Greg and Derek to the city of Brotherly Love and sorta kinda into the world of CME
• How to start wrapping your brain around the whole Quality Improvement movement in preparation for your immersion during his CMEpalooza Spring session

First up this week in our “5 Minutes With…” series is Brian McGowan, PhD, Chief Learning Officer & Co-Founder at ArcheMedX, Inc. ArcheMedX is one of our gold-level sponsors, and they are sponsoring the lunchtime panel session Brian has put together on Data-Driven and Agile Educational Design: Ensuring Your Courses Intelligently Evolve. Brian has been part of every iteration of CMEpalooza and joins Karen Roy as the only members of the exclusive CMEpalooza Three-peat Club (note to Brian and Karen: remember to present your card and give Bruno the Bouncer the secret handshake when entering the club).

I’ll admit that this is closer to a “10 Minutes With…” interview, which I’m sure comes as no surprise to any of you who have spent time with Brian. He is an excellent presenter, always a pleasure to listen to, and does a really nice job telling his “CME story” and outlining his CMEpalooza Spring session. I think you will enjoy the extra few minutes we spent with him.