In a world where quality education is scarce and where costs are constantly on the rise, no one is safe.

Devastation around every corner, desolation in every household, demolition in every neighborhood.

It’s up to two men–two brave, brave men– to save humanity

…

Sorry world. You are screwed.

Yes everyone, with CMEpalooza Fall creeping ever closer, it’s time for the Coming Attractions part of our program. The feature film playing on Wednesday, October 18 from 9 am-5 pm ET will be here soon enough, but here are a few things you can look forward to in the coming weeks.

• Next week (Oct. 2-6) will mark the return of our special CMEpalooza sponsor event. Will it be CMEpalooza Pursuit? CMEopoly? CMEpalooza Match Game? Oooh, the possibilities. Whatever it is, you’ll have your chance to win one of many cash prices we’ll be giving away just by answering some questions about our many worthy and wonderful sponsors.
• The following week (Oct. 9-13) brings back the CMEpalooza STEPtacular Challenge, sponsored once again by Talem Health. There will be some minor tweaks to the rules this time around, but you will still want to start ramping up your daily workout to try to dominate. Again, cash prizes people!
• I imagine Derek will trot out CMEpalooza Haiku pretty soon (note from Derek: of course I will! It’s the highlight…er…haikulight of every CMEpalooza.) That’s not really a Coming Attraction – just a warning to all of the poet laureates out there to get ready to cringe.

I better crack the whip on our interns to get to work — they have been spending way too much time today giving us their rendition of Dancing on My Own.

 

It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
― Oliver Wendell Holmes

I said that an expert was a fella who was afraid to learn anything new because then he wouldn’t be an expert anymore.
― Harry S. Truman

I am so smart.
I am so smart.
I am so smart.
I am so smart.
S-M-R-T…
I mean S-M-A-R-T.
― Homer J Simpson

We are never too wise, we can never have too much expertise, and we are never too smrt to increase our knowledge. Learning should be a lifelong endeavor.

In the spirit of lifelong learning, below is a list of educational programs for the CME/CE community that are coming up over the next few months. Yes, we will continue to beat you over the head with reminders that CMEpalooza Fall is coming up on October 18 (please check out the agenda if you have not done so already), but there are also plenty of other learning opportunities that you can — and should! — take advantage of (note: none of the programs listed below are paid promotions, but if anyone would like to pay us for them, we will happily accept.)

ACCME Learn to Thrive Opportunities
ACCME will host Learn to Thrive PLUS – a new virtual gathering for continuing education (CE) professionals – on October 24 from 11 am to 4:45 pm ET. The goal of this new virtual meeting is to extend the learning from Learn to Thrive 2023, ACCME’s annual meeting in Chicago this past May, and expand the conversation to those CE professionals that were not able to attend in person. Learn to Thrive PLUS isn’t a recap of the May meeting, but instead an opportunity to engage the broader community in one day of virtual collaboration to further explore strategies for improving the impact of accredited CE generated from that meeting. Registration is only $50/person for accredited providers. Learn more and register at www.accmemeeting.org/learntothriveplus.

The ACCME is also inviting the CE community to contribute educational leadership to Learn to Thrive 2024. ACCME is accepting proposals for its May 14-16, 2024, annual meeting, which will take place at the Chicago Hyatt Regency Hotel. Opportunities include proposing an Inspire and Teach! or Intensive Session(s), sharing a CE research project(s), or proposing a Working Group to tackle a challenge for CE professionals.  Visit the Learn to Thrive 2024 Call for Proposals website for more information, including a recording of the ACCME’s September 12 Informational Webinar and the rules and details for submission. The deadline for submissions is Monday, October 30, 2023.

ACEHP Fireside Chat: Creating Impactful Grant Proposals
Are you seeking to enhance your grant proposal writing skills and secure funding for your educational initiatives? If so, we’d encourage you to tune in on Thursday, October 12 for a dynamic and informative webinar that will provide you with tools and strategies to create robust grant proposals. Whether you’re a seasoned grant writer or new to the process, this webinar will equip you with the knowledge needed to craft compelling proposals that stand out in a competitive landscape.

Speakers: Riaz Baxamusa MBA, FACEhp, CHCP; Maria Deutsch MS, PharmD, RPh

Click here for more information

2023 MAACME Annual Conference
This year’s conference will be an exciting 2-day event. Wednesday, September 27 will consist of two separate workshops, Tending to Your CME Program: Know Before You Grow from 8:30 am–12:30 pm and Measuring Our Impact: Current and Emerging Best Practices in Outcomes Assessment from 2 pm–5:15 pm, followed by MAACME’s cocktail reception from 5:30 pm–7 pm.

Thursday, September 28 will feature educational sessions including ACCME Update and Hot Topics followed by Ask Us Anything: Surveyor Panel Discussion, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in CME/CPD. The afternoon breakouts will include sessions on Different Perspectives on how to manage Regularly Schedule Series (RSS) Post-Pandemic and Remaining Compliant, Common Reaccreditation Pitfalls, Commendation…Just Do It, and Talking About Activities: Enhancing Outcomes Reporting Through Qualitative Approaches. The conference will wrap up with Fast and Furious, 10 minutes presentations on best practices in CE.

Click here for more information

MAPS External Education MasterClass
Join expert faculty in New Jersey on October 23-24 for the MAPS External Education MasterClass! Explore independent and company-led external education through interactive expert-led sessions and peer-to-peer exchange, elevating your skills in the delivery of world-class education from strategy to measurement of outcomes.

Learn more and register here: https://lnkd.in/gs-KCtiA

SACME Raising the Bar on the Quality of Teaching: Focus on the Educator
In this one-hour webinar on October 26, examples will be provided of faculty development activities that represent collaborations between CPD and other offices (GME, UME, Faculty Development) within the organization or that are integrated into CPD offices.  Discussion will include how these collaborations and activities engage, develop, and/or recognize the educator.

Facilitator: Nels L. Carlson, MD, Associate Dean, Continuing Professional Development, Oregon Health & Science University

Click here for more information

Driving home from a family event over the weekend, I stumbled upon the theme song from “The Greatest American Hero” on the radio. It’s called “Believe It or Not” by the legendary one-hit wonder, Joey Scarbury

Believe it or not, I’m walkin’ on air
I never thought I could feel so free
Flyin’ away on a wing and a prayer
Who could it be?
Believe it or not, it’s just me

It’s not a bad song, and it was actually a fairly popular single back in the day (that day was 1981). Hearing the song got me to thinking about a recent episode of “The Greatest American Hero” that I watched during one of my, “Hey, I don’t feel like doing actual work for the next hour. Let’s see what random ’80 TV show I can watch as research for a future CMEpalooza blog post” spells.

If you aren’t familiar with “The Greatest American Hero,” the premise is that a middle school science teacher somehow encounters aliens, who are friendly enough to leave him with a silly-looking suit that gives him superpowers. In each episode, he has to harness his superpowers to catch a series of lame bad guys. The only superpower that I can really remember is that he has the ability to fly, but not fly like Superman. He flew like a mildly drunk uncle, weaving and crashing into things pretty much in every episode. I know, it sounds pretty dumb, but the show was very popular for a few years, and I loved it as a little kid (note from Derek: me too.).

Here was my reaction when I re-watched an episode a few months ago: “Oof.”

It was terrible. Just totally ridiculous – the plot, the acting, the script, the “special” effects. I lasted 5 minutes before muttering, “Well, that didn’t age well,” and changed the channel.

Because I can, and because I know it will make Derek angry that I am stealing “his thing” and giving you a Top 5 list, here are the Top 5 ’80s shows (excluding TGAH) that I loved as a kid that have not aged well:

1. What’s Happening
2. Small Wonder
3. Who’s the Boss
4. Perfect Strangers
5. ALF

I thought about expounding for several hundred words on what makes these shows unwatchable now, but then I remembered this is a blog about continuing medical education, and that I probably should tell you what this has to do with our industry.

So I will.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a colleague which read, “Say, have you come across any recent research articles about bias in commercially supported CE/CME (in the U.S.)? I’ve done a lot of searching and it’s almost as if the issue disappeared sometime around 2014 (which is a little hard to believe).”

For those of you who have been around our world for a little while, you might remember when the topic of bias in commercially-funded CME was a big issue. There were some influential folks in the medical community who made this a topic that got a lot of attention. Did it ever amount to much in the long run? Not really. Once people realized that accredited organizations have put a variety of safeguards in place to ensure that our education is fair balanced and not driven by funders’ marketing teams, it became a cause that aged poorly.

Here are the top 5 additional CME trends from the last two decades that have also aged poorly, some of which you can still hear about by going to the CMEpalooza archives:

1. Performance improvement (PI) CME: The impetus for PI-CME was admirable. Instead of having healthcare providers complete a bunch of one-off CME activities to earn their required number of credit hours, you’d encourage them to enroll in more robust programming with specific, data-driven goals and earn lots of CME credits within the activity series. Except that few providers were willing to put in the time to complete these programs, and they didn’t care about earning lots of credits all at once. Plus, these activities were very expensive to design and develop. $1 million in funding for 10 learners? No thank you.
2. Alternate outcomes models: Ever since the publication of the Moore’s outcomes model in 2003, there have been a variety of folks who have trotted out “new and improved” variations. And yet Moore’s remains the general standard across the board. Of course, many providers make their own tweaks, but nothing markedly different has ever really caught on.
3. Medical education and communication companies (MECCs) as “dirty” CME providers: There was a period of time when a small group of commercial funders would only accept grant proposals that had academic institutions or hospitals as accredited educational providers. While MECCs could partner with them on education (and many did), they could not accredit the education regardless of how the ACCME felt about them. It was quite a pain for everyone and didn’t make a whole of sense, so it fortunately quietly went away.
4. Hybrid Live Events: I guess these are still around, but I suspect their days are numbered as we continue to emerge from the COVID fog. Too expensive, too many logistical challenges, and hard to coordinate to give online learners a valuable educational experience. Admittedly, this is the one on this list I am least comfortable saying “won’t age well” as technology improves, but I’ll stick this here for now.
5. Artificial intelligence Chatbots in CME: Wait, what is this doing here? Isn’t there a session of CMEpalooza Fall in 2023 that is devoted to this topic? And wasn’t your AI chatbot session the most viewed session in the spring? Yes. And yes. But as time passes and more and more of these chatbots roll out, I’m only getting more confused. Is this the one that is supposed to help post-test questions? Which one can help organize my survey data? Might we eventually develop “chatbot fatigue”? Time will tell.

I am sure I am missing some other good ones that could be added to the list. And no, I won’t do a, “Add your favorites in the chat section” to pathetically try to drum up comments from our audience. But if you want to do so, well, great!.