Joseph Luzi has been named executive vice President of the Institute for Advanced Health Education (Institute), an “accredited provider of solutions that facilitate continuing medical education (CME) courses and credits for professionals in the medical industry,” according to a press release.

Luzi will oversee the overall and financial direction of the organization, and he will develop and execute the Institute’s CME initiatives to ensure they meet CME regulatory compliance guidelines (lucky guy!).

Many know Mickey Schaefer from her role as APEX Commission Chair, or from her stint as PCMA’s president, or from her many other roles as a leader in the industry. She has long been a mover and shaker also in her role as Vice President, Administration, Meetings & Conventions, Membership and Strategic Planning & Marketing, with the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Well, in an e-mail today, she announced that she’ll be leaving the AAFP at the end of January 2005 to move to Tucson and start her own business, which will focus on the meetings industry and associations. She stresses that she will continue her volumnous volunteer activities, including her work with APEX, and that she hopes to be able to give more details of her future plans by the time the PCMA conference in Honolulu rolls around.

While I can only imagine how hard it’ll be to hang up her AAFP hat after such a long and happy relationship, I and all my colleagues here at The Meetings Group wish her bon voyage on her new life’s journey.

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The Academy of General Dentistry announced today that it has hired Maria Anderson to serve as Program Specialist in Dental Education, providing program and administrative support to the American Board of General Dentistry (ABGD) including written correspondence and database maintenance and reporting. Anderson will process and track ABGD exam

applications and assist in the development and distribution of ABGD exam materials. She will support the production and administration of the ABGD Exam and AGD’s Fellowship Exam.

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This post courtesy of Anne Taylor-Vaisey:

From the New England Journal of Medicine (subscription required to read the full article: Health Care Coverage and Drug Costs — The Candidates Speak Out

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From an article in the Wilmington Journal:

Old North State Medical Society has been awarded the Society of the Year Award by the National Medical Association (NMA) for demonstrating exemplary leadership in community service and continuing medical education through its tobacco prevention grassroots program among African-American teens in North Carolina. Old North State s President Eleanor E. Greene accepted this honor at the annual NMA convention in San Diego, Calif. in late summer 2004.



The NMA cited Old North State s program  Physicians United for Teen Health, funded by the NC Health and Wellness Trust Fund as a primary factor in their decision to choose Old North State. This program focuses on teen tobacco use prevention and cessation and has produced commendable results among African-American teens in North Carolina. It also works to develop youth action teams; provides training sessions for youth and community organizations; and trains its physician members to talk to teen about smoking during routine office visits and support their efforts to quit.

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I am so pleased to be able to welcome our new co-blogger, Anne Taylor-Vaisey, MLS.

Anne, a Canadian librarian with years of experience in continuing health education and librarianship, and in Internet training at all levels, is with the CMCC Health Sciences Library, Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, in Toronto, Ontario. She also is a tireless seeker of the latest CME-related academic research and reporting, which she is willing to share with us here on Capsules.

Here’s the first of what I hope will be many of her contributions to Capsules:

From Medical Education Online:

Bradley P, Herrin J. Development and validation of an instrument to measure knowledge of evidence based practice and searching skills. Med Educ Online [serial online] 2004;9:15.

Abstract: The aim of this study was to develop and validate three instruments which measure knowledge about searching for and critically appraising scientific articles (evidence-based practice-EBP). Twenty-three questions were collected from previous studies and modified by an expert panel. These questions were then administered to 55 delegates before and after two international conferences in EBP; the responses were assessed for discriminative ability and internal consistency. Five questions were discarded and three instruments of six questions each were developed. Finally, the instruments were re-validated in a randomized controlled trial comparing two educational interventions at the University of Oslo, Norway by 166 of 175 eligible medical students. In the re-validation, the instruments showed satisfactory level of discriminate validity (p<0.05), but borderline levels of internal consistency (Cronbach s a 0.52-0.61). More research is needed to develop a suitable instrument which includes questions on searching for evidence.

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The 11th annual National Health Information Awards Program proved to be a big boost for the medical education Web site VirtualProstate.com, a site developed by Rockpointe Corporation that serves as a resource for doctors to learn more about prostate diseases and treatments. The site earned the “Gold” award for medical communications. According to the company s PR person, “This awards program, the most comprehensive of its kind, recognizes the best consumer health information materials and programs from organizations throughout the nation.” VirtualProstate is in good company: only eight sites received Gold-level recognition this year, including those of the Mayo Clinic, the National Cancer Institute, Medscape, and the Iowa Clinic.

It does sound like it deserves the award, with information about prostate cancer, prostatic hyperplasia, and prostatitis that has been vetted by health professionals at George Washington University Medical Center; animations of the full virtual prostate, symptoms of other prostate conditions, and the development of prostate cancer; pre-developed PowerPoint slides that medical professionals may download for free and manipulate by adding and changing information on their own; and, CME activities by which a physician may earn CME credits for using the site.

With nearly 20,000 user sessions in three months of operation, it sounds like the site is a hit with more than just the awards committee.

The honor goes to Clifford Kalb, who was just hired as vice president of market development for Life Sciences with Wood Mackenzie, a provider of global life sciences information. According to a press release, Kalb will not just lead the identification and development of new market and product ideas; and be responsible for forming and managing the company’s Life Sciences advisory board he ll also be in charge of developing and managing annual client education meetings.

Kalb, who has more than 30 years of experience in the pharma industry, most recently headed up Merck’s strategic business analysis group.

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