Continuing Medical Education: Looking Back, Planning Ahead

13. Organizations of Continuing Medical Education Professionals: The Alliance for Continuing Medical Education, the Association for Hospital Medical Education, and the Canadian Association for Continuing Health Education

150 The Alliance content authored by Harry A. Gallis; AHME content authored by Robert K. Richards, David R. Pieper, Thomas C. Gentile, Jr., Robert L. Tupper, and Brian W. Little; CACHE content authored by Jill Donahue and Bernard A. Marlow chapter 13 Organizations of Continuing Medical Education Professionals: The Alliance for Continuing Medical Education, the Association for Hospital Medical Education, and the Canadian Association for Continuing Health Education This chapter highlights the role and development of three of the key organizations that support and foster continuing medical education (CME) in the United States and Canada. The history of the fourth—the Society for Academic CME, the sponsoring organization behind this book—is found in chapter 12. Within these four organizations , individuals committed to fostering the field of CME have found homes for their professional growth and development. Their individual stories are important to understand the foundations of CME in the United States and Canada. The Alliance for Continuing Medical Education The Alliance for Continuing Medical Education (the Alliance) is the largest membership organization for continuing medical education (CME) professionals in the world (2,465 individuals in 2009), with the majority of members from the United States and Canada.∞ The Alliance continues to have an open membership to all persons working in CME and related fields, including those in the pharmaceutical industry. Throughout the years, the Alliance annual conference has begun to approach and occasionally exceed 2,000 registrants and is easily the largest CME-focused meeting, o√ering a forum for education for all persons interacting within the CME field.≤ In 1994, on the occasion of its 20-year anniversary , the board of directors of the Alliance commissioned internist William Campbell Felch, MD, to write a personal history and to conduct a series of interviews with the key players in the early history of the Alliance. This is well chronicled in the 1996 publication The Alliance for Continuing Medical Education: The First 20 Years and the accompanying series of audiotape interviews conducted by Felch. Other than touching on a few of these highlights, this chapter focuses on a 15-year period beginning in 1995. Key Events in the History of the Alliance and Their Impact on CME The Alliance originated on December 12, 1974, at the Princeton Club of New York with organization and support provided by Lewis Miller of Miller and Fink Corporation, publisher of the magazine Patient Care. This initial invitational meeting included 36 individuals from academia, industry, medical practice, the government, and organized medicine to function as somewhat of a think tank for the nascent field of CME. The for- Organizations of CME Professionals / Gallis, Richards, Pieper, Gentile Jr., Tupper, Little, Donahue, & Marlow 151 mat was small group round table discussions followed by reporting in plenary sessions and consensus building. This group developed a specific charge for the new organization: ‘‘To identify, and promote the implementation of, a rational, pluralistic, and coordinated system of CME, for the purpose of enabling practicing physicians to be optimally e√ective in the delivery of patient care.’’≥ Following this initial meeting, a steering committee representing the major stakeholders was formed and included Felch; Joseph Gonella of Je√erson Medical College; Michael Goran of the Bureau of Quality Assurance, US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; Miller; Tom Stern, American Academy of Family Practice (representative for specialty societies); and Dick Wilbur of Baxter Laboratories. This degree of representation continues to this day and is one of the essential characteristics of the Alliance as well as the concept that the Alliance should act as a catalyst for stimulating change and advancement within the field. Each member of the steering committee served as chair of the following six task forces: defining needs (Gonella), financing (Wilbur), coordination and planning (Miller), structuring programs (Felch), methods of evaluation (Goran), and methods of motivation (Stern). The reports of these task forces formed the core for the first annual conference and invitational held in Atlanta from February 29 through March 1, 1976. One hundred three people attended and the core activity for the participants resulted in the development of the following six priorities for action: research linking CME to physician competence and to patient care; competence-based core curricula by specialty; uniform standards for program accreditation; establishment of a clearinghouse for CME materials and courses; development of a CME systems model; and research into physician nonparticipation in CME. In 1978, the steering committee made the decision to convert the organization into a dues paying membership organization with...