History

The Global Alliance for Medical Education was established in June 1995 to serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas among nonprofit and for-profit organizations involved internationally in the development and marketing of CME and health education programs.

GAME was launched in a manner similar to that of the Alliance for Continuing Medical Education (ACME) and shares the same "founding father," Lewis Miller. The ACME began in 1975 when Miller, a publisher of clinical journals and other CME enduring materials, brought together a group of 45 persons from several disciplines to discuss the future of CME. The informal organization created at that meeting eventually grew into today's organization of over 2,100 members.

While Lewis Miller continued his involvement with the ACME, he began to focus his publishing activities on the international development and distribution of CME. In 1990, he formed Intermedica Partners, a small group of associates in the United States and abroad, to carry out the first of two objectives noted above. By 1995, the group recognized a need to open membership to create a forum in which many more people could meet and exchange ideas. Ultimately, 22 people from the United States and seven other countries attended an informal meeting in June 1996.

Attendance at the Second Annual Meeting in 1997 expanded to 50 persons from Europe, Latin America, North America, Australia, and Asia. The topics discussed included the development of CME in Europe, Latin America, and China: the possibility of reciprocal international systems of CME credit; disease management; and the use of new technologies in CME and health education.

A year later, at the Third Annual Meeting in June 1998, some 70 people from around the world joined together in New York City to examine "How the New Media Will Affect CME and Health Education." The director of Columbia University's Center for New Media was the keynoter; presentations followed on changing formats already in use (e.g. CME online) and on pharmaceutical marketers' expectations of the needs for CME and health education in the emerging markets of the Far East, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

In the past attendance and enthusiasm has grown, particularly as Europe has moved to its own system of CME through the new European Accreditation Council on Continuing Medical Education (EACCME).

Members approved a formal structure and elected nine people to the Board of directors. The directors in turn elected officers and determined that the organization would file for nonprofit status. GAME had come of age as a membership organization.