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.

Sit down, grab a cup of coffee (splash of cream, no sugar), pull up a chair, and spend “5 Minutes With…Greselda Butler.” Greselda is Manager, Professional Education at Otsuka America Pharmaceutical Inc., and is moderating the 10 a.m. CMEpalooza Spring session, Let the Sun Shine In: Perspectives and Insights on the Implementation of the Physician Payment Sunshine Act. If for nothing else, you should tune in for these two reasons alone:

1. Hear Greselda confirm that this session will be more than just a discussion about meals. I think we’ve all had enough of that to last a lifetime.
2. Hear Scott correctly pronounce “Otsuka.” I was duly impressed.

Check out the video below.