GAME 10th Annual Meeting
a Rousing Success

NEW YORK -- The 10th Annual Meeting of the Global Alliance for Medical Education held here in June at the Westin Times Square hotel was, as always, a rousing success. With the theme of "Building a Global CME community", CME experts from many different countries provided vital information on CME requirements, perspectives and trends from different regions of the world.

Attendees also saw Lewis A. Miller, one of the founders of GAME, honored and presented with the GAME 2005 Precepts of Hippocrates Award.

The 2005 meeting program plus a number of reports detailing the presentations and topics discussed at the meeting are available from our Meeting Archive on the GAME website (game-cme.org). Below are highlights from each of the sessions with links to the full article online at the GAME website. GAME members can also access the meeting's presentation materials from our Presentation Archive.

Magee Keynote Address Focuses on Family Caregivers

NEW YORK -- One of the biggest trends affecting health care in the United States and worldwide is the growing role of family caregivers, said Mike Magee, MD, Senior Fellow in the Humanities, World Medical Association; and Vice President, Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative, during his keynote address at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Global Alliance for Medical Education, held June 19-21 at the Westin New York at Times Square.

Driving that trend is the huge increase in the aging population. Fifty percent of 60-year-olds have a parent alive. "This means that the four-generation family in the United States is pushing out the three-generation family. The common family in the future will have a grandchild, a child, a parent, and a grandparent. Even more dramatic is the fact that by the year 2050, a million Americans will be over the age of 100. This means that the five-generation family will become commonplace in America," said Dr. Magee.

Read more online »

CME from 160° West to 160° East
Project Globe Aims to Empower Front-line Physicians

NEW YORK -- CME/CPPD can be an effective tool in reaching the goals outlined in the United Nations Millennium Declaration 2000 and Mexico 2004, which include eradicating extreme hunger and poverty, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, and combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases, said Pablo Pulido, MD, Co-Chair, Project Globe; Executive Director, Pan American Federation of Medical Schools, Caracas, Venezuela.

Generalist doctors provide most first-line care to the world's population, but their access to CME/CPPD varies widely. "There is a need to harmonize efforts to improve CME/CPPD quality in a world-wide partnership with medical schools and health care systems," said Dr. Pulido, in a session here during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Global Alliance for Medical Education.

Read more online »

The Spinning Globe of CME:
North to South and West to East

NEW YORK -- Three presenters provided attendees with updates on continuing medical education initiatives in German, India and Africa here during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Global Alliance for Medical Education, held June 19-21 at the Westin New York at Times Square.

Germany Goes for Mandatory CME

In Germany in 2004, CME became mandatory for ambulatory care physicians, and it will probably become mandatory for hospital-based physicians in 2006, said Daniela Jennifer Kempkens, MD, Research Assistant, Faculty of Medicine, University Witten/Herdecke, Witten, Germany.

Although the specifics have not yet been worked out, Germany plans to institute penalties, such as reimbursement cuts, for doctors who do not obtain the required 250 credits by 2009. But, added Dr. Kempkens, the details have not been worked out and 2009 is very far away.

Read more online »

Contrasting World of Medical Education Companies:
United States vs. Germany

NEW YORK -- The regulatory environment in the United States is disrupting commercial support of CME, said Martin Cearnal, Chief Strategy Officer, Thomson Healthcare, Secaucus, New Jersey, here during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Global Alliance for Medical Education.

Most recently, the U.S. government is focusing on false claims-anything that causes the government to pay either an inappropriate amount or pay for an unrealized service-and this scrutiny is being extended to CME activities. For example, if a physician attends a CME activity where off-label use was discussed and then prescribes that medication outside of the FDA-approved labeling for a patient who receives Medicare or Medicaid, is that a false claim? This government concern is a tortuous trail, but it is creating a lot of concern within the CME community, said Cearnal.

Read more online »

Bluetooth or Blue Sky?
e-CME: A Promising Field

NEW YORK -- While online CME is growing, there are still barriers to its expansion, said Honorio Silva, MD, GAME Board of Directors; and Vice President, Science and Medical Professional Development, Pfizer, Inc., New York.

On the positive side, the number of certified e-CME activities increased ten-fold between 1998 and 2003, according to the 2004 ACCME Data Report; and a 2005 Data Monitor survey of 1500 physicians in the United States showed that doctors retain information better from e-CME than from conventional education, noted Dr. Silva who moderated a session on e-learning during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Global Alliance for Medical Education.

However, physicians have been disappointed with the quality of many e-CME activities. Online CME programs need to be more interactive, tailored to specific audiences, and provide credible and relevant information. Another obstacle to e-CME expansion includes a low level of awareness among physicians, said Dr. Silva. Physicians still go to the Internet mainly for informational purposes, not for CME, he added. Finally, there are no quality standards for e-CME. "This is a promising field, but there is still a lot of work to do," concluded Dr. Silva.

Read more online »

Managing Commercial Support:
Ethics and Codes of Conduct

NEW YORK -- The latest news regarding federal scrutiny of the pharmaceutical industry is that in June the United States Senate Finance Committee submitted a letter to major drug manufacturers requesting information about their systems for awarding educational grants, said Maureen Doyle-Scharff, GAME Board of Directors; Director, Professional Services, Ross Products Division, Abbott Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio.

Doyle-Scharff, in a presentation here the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Global Alliance for Medical Education, stated that the U.S. Senate is concerned that manufacturers may be using educational grants to fund activities primarily to promote their products.

The U.S. Senate inquiry is the latest in a series of crackdowns and investigations. More than $2 billion in fines have been levied against pharmaceutical companies in the past two years. "I'm not suggesting it's because of continuing medical education, but CME is woven within that and has actually been touched upon in some of those cases," said Doyle-Scharff.

Read more online »

Next Year's GAME Meeting Slated for Rome

GAME members and other global CME experts already are looking forward to the 11th Annual Meeting, which will be held in Rome, Italy from June 18-20, 2006.

The meeting, whose theme will be "Does CME Improve the Quality of Care?", will offer less didactic sessions and more interactive breakout sessions. Co-chairs of next year's meeting, GAME Board members Herve Maisonneuve and Alfonso Negri, are working hard on securing speakers for the meeting, as well as collaborative agreements with some major CME and medical organizations.

So keep checking back to the GAME website and at the GAME exhibit booth at October's AMA Task Force Meeting in Baltimore for updated information.