Here’s a nice response to the criticism of commercially supported CME that was included in a story about the recent launch of a curricula-development company called Lighthouse Learning. Written by Frank Britt President and CEO M/C Holding Corp., whose Pri-Med programs were cast in a somewhat unsavory light in that article, he explains the safeguards in place, etc., and reflects the pride all the CME providers I’ve ever spoken with have in their role as healthcare educators. Nicely done.

I didn’t include it in my writeup of the company’s launch, but Martin Samuels, MD, founding chair, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, and Lighthouse’s director of medical education, said he has taught Pri-Med neurology courses in the past (15 or 20 consecutively), and he fully intends to continue to serve as Pri-Med faculty as well as faculty for his own firm’s neurology curricula. It’s just that, when he tried to develop a Pri-Med-like course for neurology, there was some sort of conflict between the curriculum he thought was necessary and what the company could get a grant for. He explicitly said, to me anyway, that he thought the Pri-Med model was a good one; “Their model just didn’t work for specialties.”

It was a little shocking to see this story on the launch of a new medical education company on the front page of today’s Boston Globe. I’m trying to schedule an interview now with the person behind the launch — Martin Samuels, MD, a neurologist with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and formerly a medical director with M/C Communications, according to the Globe. The front-page-worthiness appears to stem from this company, called Lighthouse Learning, taking commercial support out of its business model. According to the Globe:

“The work will be paid for by the sale of the curriculum to hospitals, medical societies, insurance companies, and other organizations that provide professional education to doctors, said Samuels, who is Lighthouse’s director of medical education. While prices have not been set, the founders say organizations will eventually pay more because they will want to say the education they provide is free of industry influence, and rules will increasingly require that.”

While their faculty and curriculum directors don’t have to be entirely free of relationships with industry — something they seem to acknowledge would knock the top folks off their list — those relationships do have to be “limited and disclosed.”

I wish the article had at least included a mention of recent studies like this one that indicate that the commercial support of CME activities actually doesn’t result in the appearance of bias, along with Samuels’ assertion that “Just paying for general courses on migraines, or Lyme disease, helps persuade doctors to intervene with treatment for more patients.”

Anyway, I look forward to learning more about what caused these folks to jump in with a new MECC when the trend seems to be more on the exodus side. If you have any questions you want answered around this, drop me an e-mail and I’ll add them to my list (or if you would like to make a comment of your own about this topic, I’d love to hear that, too).

Update: Here’s my writeup of the company launch after a discussion with Dr. Samuels. There has been a pretty interesting discussion around this on the CME LinkedIn group as well. And of course, some commentary from The Carlat Psychiatry Blog (don’t miss the comments) and, in the other corner, from Policy and Medicine.

…that they may not be disclosing fully. According to an article in today’s Boston Globe, some researchers cross-referenced physician payment databases with journal article disclosures and found fewer than half of docs receiving $1 million or more from industry disclosed that fact. Though it does say that it’s not clear if the docs didn’t disclose or if the journals just didn’t publish their disclosures, and the study was limited to 40 orthopedic surgeon researchers who made at least a million from one company, and two who got a million from just two companies.

Here’s a link to the full article in the Archives of Internal Medicine. I’m not sure what you could, or should, do to ensure that faculty is disclosing fully. I suppose an organization could hire someone to do background checks similar to what these researchers did, but what a hassle.

I’m so sad to have to say that our lovely and talented CME: In Practice columnist, Ann Lichti, has written her last column for us, at least for a while. But I think the idea behind that column is still sound and, more importantly, needed.

So while it would be impossible to replace Ann, I would love to find some new people who are willing and able to speak the truth of their experiences in providing CME in the real world. Newbies would be more than welcomed — in fact, those with less experience may be able to bring a fresh, or at least different, perspective on the challenges that have plagued this enterprise for so long.

If this sounds like you or someone you know, please drop a comment below or e-mail me. You don’t have to be Hemingway (and I’d be glad to work with those who may not feel as confident about their writing abilities as they are about their work in CME); all you need are strongly held opinions and a willingness to speak to what it’s really like to work in this field today.

If you’ve recently implemented a great idea into your CME program, you should nominate it for the Alliance for CME’s Great Idea Award. If you win, you’ll not only be recognized by the Alliance, but you’ll also get to share what you did during the member section meeting.

Time is getting tight, though: Deadline for submissions in September 17, so download this pdf and get it going today.

Even if you don’t win, I’d love to hear some of your success stories. There’s so much we can learn from each other when we share our experiences, challenges, best practices, and, of course, great ideas.

After reading this article about what the disconnection between what doctors say and what patients hear, I can’t help but wonder how you can teach something like that. Especially since half of the problem — the patient half — won’t be at the CME activity, most likely. Or maybe you do include patients in this type of education? If anyone is tackling this, I’d love to know how you go about it, and how you measure the results.

According to Health Care Renewal, the American Board of Specialty Societies may add “tools to promote meaningful use of healthcare IT into it maintenance of certification program.” (Quote is from a Modern Healthcare article.) HCR author Scot Silverstein, MD, thinks this is a terrible idea (click through the above link to read his argument), but whatever you think of the idea, if it becomes reality, it would certainly turn the heat up on that topic area for CME.