MINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE GLOBAL ALLIANCE FOR MEDICAL EDUCATION

June 29, 1999

At the Princeton Club

New York, NY

Attendees:

Lew Miller

Mark Connors

Gonzalo Lopez

Nikos Kastanos

Fred Wilson

Dennis Wentz

Chris West

Proceedings:

1. There was a discussion of the venue and timing for next year’s meeting. The last weekend in June in New York was agreed. Comments were raised about the high cost of the meeting room and the accommodation at the Princeton Club. Lew has offered to check into alternatives and report back to the Board.

2. General concern about the viability of GAME, and how best to ensure it, was expressed. Various strategems were considered. Dennis suggested that down the road we might piggyback on the AMA’s industry provider task force meeting, held in Washington in September. This would provide an opportunity to capture a large group of target-market registrants for GAME. There was considerable enthusiasm for this proposal. The Board agreed to test the idea with a satellite GAME session in September 2000, on the theme of Global Industry /CME Opportunities.

3. In light of Dennis’ suggestion above, it was agreed to hold the next Board Meeting in conjunction with this September’s AMA task force meeting in Washington. The date of the meeting will be September 22. Time: 12:00 PM.

4. Lew called upon the chairman of the nominations committee, to present the nominees for officers for 99/00. Dennis presented the following slate which was acclaimed: President – Lew Miller; Vice-President – Mark Connors; Treasurer – Fred Wilson; Secretary – Chris West. Two new positions were put forward and approved: European Liaison Officer – Nikos Kastanos, and Latin American Liaison Officer – Pedro Vera.

5. Picking up on the earlier piggybacking theme raised by Dennis, Chris wondered out loud if we could hold small-scale satellite GAME meetings in Europe and Latin America, held in conjunction with suitable established meetings. There was considerable agreement that this approach could be an effective tactic to increase GAME’s profile and membership in these international markets. Lew and Dennis talked of the possibility of attending a satellite meeting or two. Gonzalo and Nikos will report back to the Board at the September meeting on the feasibility of this idea in their respective regions.

6. Lew conducted a brief post-mortem of this year’s meeting, soliciting comments from everyone around the table:

· Gonzalo – very useful information; much better than last year; but could we have more speakers from other parts of the world; New York is expensive to get to and to stay at

· Fred – this year’s program was excellent; not keen on the quiz, which wasted too much time; would support more foreign content

· Chris – the business program was well executed, but we should be wary of too much pure business on our agenda in future; no matter what is on the program, by about 4:00 PM on Monday, the proceedings drag; could we consider cutting off sooner?; there is a conundrum in that we need more participation and speakers from abroad, yet it is often prohibitively expensive for them to come

· Nikos – last year was better because there was more involvement from abroad; albeit there were valuable insights and information to be had from three or four presentations; didn’t like the quiz; would like to see more emphasis on the international panels

· Dennis – suggested that in future we break off at 3:00 PM on Monday; committee chairs could hold their meetings immediately following, rather that over Tuesday breakfast; there was general support for this; the ungainly name of the meeting threw people off the scent and hurt our attendance; otherwise, the program was excellent and more people would have come if they had had a better idea of what to expect

· Lew – we need to do a better job of educating our speakers to be sensitive to the international dimension of our audience; too much reliance on American-centric thinking and terminology e.g., in Joe Green’s keynote address; too many time-wasting miscues with laptop presentations; otherwise a good meeting

· Mark – the late delivery of the program hampered marketing and promotion of the meeting; would like to expedite program development this year; suggested that there be speaker handouts; wants more structure to talks arranged in advance, so as to eliminate repetitive questions from the audience

7. Pending the Treasurer’s report on the state of funds after paying the 1999 meeting expenses, the Board approved the creation of a modest budget (not to exceed $5000) to fund the contracting of a professional writer to work on the newsletter under Chris West’s direction.

8. The meeting was terminated.

Respectfully submitted,

Christopher West

Secretary