This post courtesy of Anne Taylor-Vaisey:

I came across this Eli Lilly and Company Clinical Trial Registry site quite by accident.

This December 9th story from the Indianapolis Star describes the site’s development and purpose:

Eli Lilly and Co. opened a first-of-its-kind Web site to the public Wednesday where anyone can read results of clinical trials on Lilly drugs.



The site, http://www.lillytrials.com, allows the public easy access to results of trials where experimental and marketed Lilly drugs were tested on human volunteers and patients, said Dr. Alan Breier, the drugmaker’s chief medical officer.




”Lilly wants to play a leadership role as we move to greater accountability and transparency” in posting drug test results, he said at a teleconference.

In other related news, this from the New York Times: Pricey Drug Trials Turn Up Few New Blockbusters

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http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

My Capsules co-blogger, Anne Taylor-Vaisey, has been busily updating the Society for Academic CME’s News for Medical & Adult Educators (one of the many volunteer jobs she undertakes!). Click here to check out the latest links.

Also, Anne send let me know that the new issue of CME Briefing is now online. Definitely worth checking out.

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The quest for practice-based, evidence-based tools continues, and progress is being made, said director of the AMA s PRA policy Charles Willis at the SACME fall meeting Nov. 6 in Boston. Here s what s been happening.

The physician-directed, interactive Internet CME pilot project, started in December of 2000, is an attempt to capture, as learning, use of professional literature at or near the point of care using technology. The four pilot participants SKOLAR Inc., UpToDate Inc., American College of Physicians Physician Information and Education Resource system, and MerkMedicus have been popping along.

This post courtesy of Anne Taylor-Vaisey:

The Open Access Journal of Medical Internet Research [it calls itself The leading peer-reviewed eHealth journal] has re-designed its Web site and it is very user-friendly.

The current issue of JMLA (Journal of the Medical Libary Association) includes a largely positive review of JMIR:

Harriman JHP. Journal of Medical Internet Research. J Med Libr Assoc 2004 October; 92(4): 510 511.

Excerpts: JMIR’s goal is to help health care and medical professionals and consumers maximize the use of the Internet to deliver quality health care and health information. To achieve this goal, JMIR publishes original research reporting the application, development, and evaluation of information technology related to the Internet, as well as proposals, reviews, and opinion papers on standards, policies, and legal and ethical issues of e-health.

[JMIR] is a reliable, current, and well-maintained scientific publication.

Free full text of the review

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I didn’t personally know the six physicians who died in a plane crash on their way to a medical conference at the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine on Oct. 19, but my heart goes out to all whose lives they touched. It’s a terrible thing when random tragedy strikes those who were dedicated to increasing humanism in medicine, the topic of the conference they were on their way to attend.

Be safe. Be well. Help to carry their legacy forward by educating your participants in how they can provide more compassionate care to their patients in this time-crunched, depersonalized healthcare world.

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This post courtesy of Anne Taylor-Vaisey:

The November 1 issue of the Medical Journal of Australia contains the sixth entry in the Teaching on the run tips series. Here are the citations for all six tips articles. The PubMed links will connect you to free full text.

Lake FR, Hamdorf JM. Teaching on the run tips 6: determining competence. Med J Aust 2004; 181(9):502-503.

PubMed

Lake FR. Teaching on the run tips: doctors as teachers. Med J Aust 2004; 180(8):415-416.

PubMed link

Today must be perception versus reality day. In speaking with someone I very much respect the other day, a comment was made that I’d really appreciate hearing your opinion on.

Does the name of our magazine, Medical Meetings, imply that we’re stuck in the past, when meetings were really the only way CME was delivered? Now that meetings are just one of many ways educational content is delivered–and often, other avenues are more appropriate and effective for certain situations and content areas–does our name imply that meetings are all we’re about? Do we need a reality check? If so, what name would better reflect our commitment to providing the information you need to achieve excellence in CME in all its varied forms?

Please e-mail me with your comments, or click on “comments” below (to leave an anonymous comment, don’t fill in the identifier fields; just post your comments to the content box). I promise we won’t be offended–we just want to know what you think about this.

This one just doesn t want to go away. The latest issue of AMANews has an article debating the pros and cons of lowering the bar on what is considered a disease, and how to treat symptoms that didn t used to be considered in need of medical intervention.

My question to CME providers would be: How do you decide what should be the standard of care your faculty disseminates to the audience, especially in areas where there isn t a preponderance of evidence to go on?

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I hope you like the latest addition to Medical Meetings. I’ll try to round up the latest news and information about the medical education industry and post it here as often as possible–hopefully daily.

But I’ll start off with a plea for help: Medical Meetings is working with several CME providers to develop a checklist for working with outside fundraisers for CME events–something that, as far as we can tell, doesn’t yet exist. If you have such a thing, or any suggestions or ideas, or would like to be a part of the process, please e-mail me. We’re just getting started, and could use all the help and input we can get! I’d be glad to e-mail you what we have so far, as a starting point.