Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings April 2014, Volume 27, Number 2 | Page 86

approved. An average of 1.11 CME credit hours (range 0-3) was
awarded. Despite a brief PowerPoint display explaining the new
criteria and procedures, failure to follow directions was again the
primary reason for denial of CME credit.
Lessons learned
One downside to this CME approach is the labor involved
in reviewing the critiques. Yet for one arbitrator, who soldiered
through 370 handwritten reviews of widely varying but mostly
poor penmanship quality, the experience was heartwarming and
informative. A common positive theme among the responses,
especially for politically charged and socially complex topics
such as abortion, gender issues, sexual orientation, and drug
abuse issues, was the implication that the physician, possessed
of this historical background knowledge, felt more empowered,
confident, and informed when talking with patients personally
struggling in these areas.

needs. The ACCME accreditation process is of, by, and for the
profession of medicine (5).

We will also be happy to hear from the US Senate regarding
our progress.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to acknowledge the support and advice of
Arnold Berry, MD, Emory’s director of CME, and Ms. Melissa
Boone, Emory University CME manager, who were willing to
explore and support this novel CME adventure.
1.
2.
3.

4.

DISCUSSION
In our view, this CME experimental protocol with a premier
national history of medicine conference, retested at a focused
medical history symposium, was a success. Greater attention to
following the rules for submitting CME requests would have
led to enhanced success at both meetings. We hope the AAHM
continues to use and refine this method and that other history of
medicine gatherings adopt similar tactics. One future improvement will involve transitioning to an online submission format.
However this process evolves, we feel we have made a significant
and positive impact on validating the CME process for history
of medicine gatherings. In doing so we think we have complied
with the laudable and stated aims of the ACCME as follows:
The ACCME’s purpose is to oversee a voluntary, self-regulatory process for the accreditation of institutions that provide
continuing medical education (CME) and develop rigorous
standards to ensure that CME activities across the country are
independent, free from commercial bias, based on valid content, and effective in meeting physicians’ learning and practice

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5.
6.

7.

8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

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