It’s always nice when our CMEpalooza Spring participants dress up for their on-screen appearances. It’s even better when they fly in a stylist from Milan, employ a wardrobe coach to overhaul their closets, and spend thousands of dollars on sparkly new jewelry. Not that the latest victim (er, subject) of our “5 Minutes with…” series did any of that, but those of you who know Karen Roy will have to agree that she is the most stylish of our moderators yet. Apologies to everyone else who was vying for the crown.

Karen, who is Principal of the Ardgillan Group and a CMEpalooza 3-timer, is moderating our 3 p.m. ET session entitled “Style and Substance:  The Evolution of Content Presentation in Medical Education.” A few fun things you’ll learn during the course of our 5 minute-ish interview:

• How close the world came to “Good morning, Miss Karen. I’ve got to go poop!”
• Why we’re innovative in designing education and measuring outcomes, but stagnant in organizing and presenting content
• The accent? It’s fake

Oh, and that’s a root beer in my hands folks! Though we’d be happy to have a sponsor come along who wants to have an “Official Beer of CMEpalooza.” I am sure we could come up with a very inexpensive arrangement.

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