My 16-year-old daughter sent me this Never Have I Ever: Retro Edition that’s been circulating around the various social networks recently.

I scored zero points. Scott scored 1 point — he wasn’t cool enough for a MySpace account.

(Quick side note: my daughter was completely baffled by my description of a floppy disk, especially when I started expounding on the differences between a 5.25″ floppy and a 3.5″ diskette.)

Not wanting to be left out of the fun, I put together my own Never Have I Ever list. I thought you might enjoy it, too.

Never Have I Ever: Video Conference Edition
Give yourself 1 point if on a video conference you have never…

• Started talking at the same time as another person and then both said “Go ahead” at the same time
• Started talking while muted
• Told someone they were talking while muted
• Yelled at a cat/dog/kid/spouse/partner/etc. while you thought you were muted, but you were not muted
• Had a cat/dog/kid/spouse/partner/etc. accidentally pop on screen
• Turned off your camera and folded laundry/emptied dishwasher/some other household chore
• Turned off your camera and reclined on a couch/bed/floor
• Turned off your camera and gone into the bathroom
• Been the only person with their camera on
• Been the only person with their camera off
• Been the only person in a meeting and then realized you got the time wrong
• Apologized for leaving early because you had another meeting, but you didn’t actually have another meeting
• Realized your shirt was inside out when you saw yourself on camera
• Given a presentation and asked “Can you see my slides?”
• Watched a presentation where the presenter kept their slides in “normal” mode rather than “slide show” mode
• Heard someone arrive late and interrupt the person speaking by loudly saying something like “HELLO? THIS IS [PERSON’S NAME]. SORRY I’M LATE. I HAD TROUBLE GETTING ON THE ZOOM/WEBEX/TEAMS/ETC.”

Once again, my score is zero. Hopefully, our collective score for CMEpalooza Spring will be much higher (except for cats and dogs on screen. The more cats and dogs on screen, the better. Kids, too, I suppose. Not spouses and partners, though. They’re annoying.)

 

You may recall that a few months ago, I took ChatGPT for a whirl to see how it would stand up to my challenging queries.

(Who am I kidding? You don’t recall. It’s just a stupid figure of speech. Let’s try again)

In one of my many un-memorable blog posts, a few months ago, I took ChatGPT for a whirl to see how it would stand up to my challenging queries. 

It fared, um, fair. There were some pretty silly errors in the text it spit back out to me, but it was actually a bit more accurate than I expected. Still, growing pains.

But since that “memorable” December post, I’ve been seeing quite a bit of noise on LinkedIn and other social media sites about the evolution of ChatGPT along with other more niche AI portals, so I thought I’d revisit this world to see how things have changed, hopefully for the better.

(Is it the right time to mention that we’ll have a session within our Spring agenda where you can learn a lot more about this from people a lot smarter than me? Yes, yes, it is. Here is your shameless plug.)

I asked ChatGPT the same questions today that I asked them in December. Let’s see if we’re doing any better.

“Tell me why ALF was a great television show”

ALF was a great television show for several reasons. First and foremost, the show was unique and innovative, as it was one of the first sitcoms to feature an extraterrestrial character as a main character. This made it stand out from other sitcoms of its time and captured the imaginations of viewers.

Additionally, ALF was a very funny show with a great sense of humor. The show was able to blend elements of science fiction, comedy, and family drama in a way that was both entertaining and engaging. The character of ALF himself was particularly memorable, with his witty one-liners and zany antics.

The show also had a great cast of characters, including the Tanner family who served as ALF’s hosts on Earth. The relationships between the characters were complex and multifaceted, and the show explored themes of family, friendship, and acceptance.

Finally, ALF was a groundbreaking show in terms of its use of puppetry and special effects. The character of ALF was brought to life through a combination of puppetry and animatronics, which was a technological feat at the time. This made the show visually stunning and added to its overall appeal.

Overall, ALF was a great television show that captured the hearts of viewers with its unique premise, hilarious humor, memorable characters, and groundbreaking special effects.

Yep, that sounds about right. It misses out on the genius of the Ochmoneks (the next door neighbors) but that’s getting a bit too geeky (note from Derek: this is where we draw the line on being too geeky?)

Now onto something more closely tied to our world, as well as an area I think some people are actually leveraging ChatGPT to help with.

“Write a needs assessment about the latest developments in the management of type 2 diabetes”

Introduction: Type 2 diabetes is a chronic condition affecting millions of people globally. The management of type 2 diabetes has evolved over time with various advances in technology, research, and treatment options. A needs assessment is necessary to determine the latest developments in the management of type 2 diabetes and identify the gaps and areas that need improvement.

Methods: A comprehensive literature review was conducted using various databases such as PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar. Relevant studies and articles published between 2019 and 2022 were identified and analyzed to identify the latest developments in the management of type 2 diabetes.

Results: Several significant developments in the management of type 2 diabetes were identified in the literature. These include:

1. Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Systems: CGM systems are becoming more popular as they allow individuals to monitor their blood glucose levels continuously, providing real-time data and alerts for hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia.
2. Artificial Pancreas: The artificial pancreas is an emerging technology that can automatically adjust insulin delivery based on the real-time glucose readings from CGM systems.
3. Pharmacological Therapies: Several new pharmacological therapies have been developed for the management of type 2 diabetes, including glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists and sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitors.
4. Telemedicine: Telemedicine has been rapidly adopted in the management of type 2 diabetes, providing access to care and education for patients in remote areas.
5. Behavioral Interventions: Behavioral interventions such as cognitive-behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based interventions have been found to improve diabetes self-management and glycemic control.

Conclusion: The latest developments in the management of type 2 diabetes have provided significant improvements in the care and treatment of patients. However, there are still gaps that need to be addressed, such as access to these technologies and interventions, cost-effectiveness, and cultural and language barriers. Further research is needed to address these gaps and develop interventions that are accessible and effective for all patients.

Still pretty good. You can do some different things in your queries that would make this sound a little more technical and allow you to drill down into a few areas. The one big challenge I had was when I asked ChatGPT for current supportive literature references. The ones it pointed me toward had nothing to do with the topic I was researching. But I would definitely give this another try as a first-line tool.

Let’s keep going.

“Write a CMEpalooza blog post”

Title: “Maximizing Learning Outcomes: How to Design Effective CME Activities”

Introduction: Continuing Medical Education (CME) is critical in ensuring that healthcare professionals stay up-to-date with the latest medical knowledge and advancements. However, not all CME activities are created equal, and some may not be effective in achieving their learning objectives. In this post, we will discuss the key elements of designing effective CME activities that can maximize learning outcomes.

There was more here, but it was pretty bland and boring. No references to ’80s pop culture, no witty banter between Derek and I, no predictions that the 76ers will win the NBA Championship. I guess we’ll have to keep writing these (ugh).

“Write a haiku about Med Learning Group” (one of our Spring 2023 Gold sponsors)

Med Learning Group
Empowering learners’ growth
Knowledge blooms with you.

Different than last time, but still not a haiku. Derek will correct me if I’m wrong, but I count this as a 4-8-5 pattern (note from Derek: nope, 4-7-5. “Growth” is only one syllable.” Poor. Very poor).

And finally for the big test…

“Write a blog post making fun of Derek Warnick”

I’m sorry, I cannot comply with this request. As an AI language model, it is not in my programming to engage in derogatory or inappropriate language towards individuals. My purpose is to provide helpful and informative responses to the best of my ability. Is there anything else I can assist you with?

Looks like someone still needs to fix the programming bugs…

And just like that…we’re back! Yes, it seems like just yesterday I was saying to Scott upon the conclusion of another successful CMEpalooza, “Thank god that’s over! That was our best CMEpalooza, yet!” Where does the time go?

Despite the quick passage of time, a surprising number of major events have occurred in our lives during the four months since CMEpalooza Fall. A brief summary:

• The Philadelphia Phillies played in the World Series! And lost.
• The Philadelphia Union played in the MLS Cup! And lost.
• The Philadelphia Eagles played in the Super Bowl! And lost.
• Derek went to his first Alliance conference since 2020
• Scott made fun of Derek for wearing a tattered baseball hat that looked like it was stained with tobacco juice to a “fancy hat” party at the Alliance conference
• Cocaine Bear was released in theaters

It’s been a wild couple of months, but we’re happy to get back to what we do best: putting together the best CMEpalooza yet!

Click here for the preliminary agenda for CMEpalooza Spring 2023. We will be updating final details for some of the sessions over the next few weeks, but this should at least give you a general overview for most of the sessions.

The response to our call for abstracts was amazing (double our previous record number of submissions!) and we want to give a big thank you to everyone who submitted. We easily could have put together a three-day CMEpalooza with the quality of the abstracts we received. The worst part about asking for abstracts is then telling people we didn’t accept their abstract (I wimped out and asked Scott to send out the rejection emails. He has a heart of stone [OK, that part is not true. I just didn’t want to do it.]) (note from Scott: Derek isn’t totally wrong. I like to tell people I have a heart of gypsum. It’s stone, but a very soft stone. Hey, I took two semesters of geology as an undergrad. I had to do something with that knowledge)

Our goal was to put together an agenda you will find interesting, informative, and entertaining. We think we’ve done that. Hopefully you will, too.

See you all on April 12!