I felt like I was tip-toeing through a minefield while writing True Lies, the cover story for the July/August issue of Medical Meetings. It’s about all the chicanery we’ve been hearing about lately on the clinical trial level, and the p otential impact it has on CME if the data being taught is based on evidence that may be tainted. (I also wrote my editorial about it.) A snip from the article:

Most would agree that the trend toward evidence-based medicine, and toward evidence-based continuing medical education, is a good one, that doctors should be basing their treatment decisions on the best available data, rather than anecdotal reports or their own personal experience. The prevailing wisdom also is that EBM is less likely to be influenced by the drug industry since it’s based on scientific fact. Spurred on by the updated Accreditation Council for CME Standards for Commercial Support, now in effect, CME providers have been working diligently to make their CME more evidence-based and bias-free through stronger peer-review and content-validation processes. Sounds good, so far.



The hitch is that now, with the recent flood of news reports about how pharmaceutical companies have been suppressing clinical research and manipulating data to present their drugs in the best possible light, you have to wonder if what you’re doing to ensure bias-free CME is enough, or if you’re just candy-coating a bitter pill.

I’d be curious to know what you all think about this. As I say in the editorial, personally I have a hard time believing that clinical trial data suppression and manipulation is a systemic problem. But it’s clearly something that needs to be addressed—now.

From PennStateLive: Penn State Hershey and Lewistown Hospital announce affiliation. “A key aspect to the affiliation is the collaboration in physician recruitment and improved continuing medical education opportunities for current medical personnel.”

DCMilitary.com has an interesting article about RDML Carol Turner, who became the National Medical Education and Training commander June 17, and her impressions of med ed training in the U.S. Navy.

“It was immediately evident the staff is highly trained and committed to the growth and development of Navy Medicine’s personnel,” Turner said. “We’re training our Navy Medicine Sailors and delivering them with the right competencies to the right places at the right time. This directly supports SEA WARRIOR and aligns with the Chief of Naval Operation’s Guidance for 2005.”



Turner said education and training in the Navy is becoming increasingly essential to every Sailor and Marine, and she takes her job as only the second National Medical Education and Training commander very seriously.




“Education and training is elevating our Sailors and Marines to participate in a much more refined service,” Turner said. “Our people must be ready, continually learning and prepared to meet the needs of the fleet and fleet Marine force.”

Interesting article in TodayOnline from Singapore: Conflict of interest? You decide Tor Ching Li. A snip:

In a nutshell, [Kidney Dialysis Foundation] founder and chairman Dr Gordon Ku is part owner of a private dialysis management company that has been contracted to run one of KDF’s three dialysis centres.



He has a 24 per cent stake in Asia Renal Care (ARC), a Singapore company that runs KDF’s centre in Bishan. The other two KDF centres are run by United States-based healthcare service providers Fresenius Medical Care and Baxter.




Dr Ku, who receives no pay for being KDF chairman, was forthright when Today approached him about the issue.




“At first glance, this may look like a conflict of interest. But not when you hear the background of how it came about. It’s up to the individual to decide,” he said.

On a quick read, this one didn’t pass the sniff test for me, but I’d be curious to know what you think.

I recently received the latest edition of WentzMiller’s e-newsletter on the latest in global CME, and it is excellent. You can view past issues here. Headlines for the Summer issue are:

One Europe in Medical Care: True or False?

CME in the Emerging World

Neurology CME in Developing Countries

Promotional Education vs CME in US vs Europe

If you’re interested in global CME, I highly recommend this resource.

According to this press release:

Elsevier, a leading global healthcare and scientific publisher, announced today that it has bought MediMedia’s professional medical publishing businesses (”MediMedia MAP”). This expands existing publishing programs and digital services, accelerates growth, and meets the demand for structured continuing education amongst medical and allied healthcare professionals worldwide.



MediMedia MAP is a key provider of medical information in rapidly growing international healthcare markets. Based in France, Spain, the US, the UK, Italy and Mexico, MediMedia MAP publishes the prestigious imprints of Masson, Doyma and Netter, providing medical books, journals and reference information for the practitioner market as well as continuing medical education and pharmaceutical industry-sponsored communications.

From WebMD: Patient Safety System Becomes Law.

President Bush signed into law Friday a bill creating the country’s first national system for reporting and tracking medical errors.



The law creates a federally run national database used to collect and study information on medical mistakes and “near misses” that harm patients in doctors offices, hospitals, pharmacies, and other health care settings.

The reporting will be voluntary and anonymous, and won’t be used against anyone in institution-grading or lawsuits. I would think that this aggregate information could be a useful tool for CME providers as part of their overall needs assessment process, but it won’t eliminate the need for specific needs assessment research for individual activities.

Thanks to Debra for the tip!