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132 Richard M. Caplan and Paul J. Lambiase chapter 12 Evolution of the Society of Medical College Directors of Continuing Medical Education into the Society for Academic Continuing Medical Education In 1990, James Leist, president of the Society for Medical College Directors of CME (known today astheSocietyforAcademicCME‘‘[SACME]),persuaded Richard Caplan, MD, to accept the task of recounting the history of SACME. That history, reprinted in part within the section of this chapter titled ‘‘The First 12 Years: 1976–1988’’ was first published in 1996.∞ The second section of this chapter, titled ‘‘The Next 20 Years: 1989–2009,’’ continues SACME’s history and is written by Paul Lambiase. Both sections approach the history not in a chronological manner but a thematic one. The First 12 Years: 1976–1988 The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) formed a committee on continuing medical education (CME) in 1950, though by 1960 only 18 medical schools had an identifiable CME program. That number grew rapidly, stimulated by state legislative decisions that required CME for re-registration of the medical license, by specialty societies (pioneered in 1947 by the American Academy of General Practice) that required CME for continued membership, and by the federally funded Heart, Stroke, and Cancer Program (better known as the Regional Medical Program), which provided financial support for developing many medical college CME programs . During the 1950s and 1960s, many medical schools took the initiative to develop their own CME programs. Such developments were probably major stimuli that prompted W. Albert Sullivan Jr., MD, of the University of Minnesota, to convene a meeting in 1960 to which all medical colleges with identifiable CME programs were invited . Its theme, ‘‘How to Get Medical Schools Involved in CME,’’ was followed later that year by a meeting in Albany, New York, convened by Frank Woolsey, Jr., MD. In 1967, Jesse Rising, MD, CME director at the University of Kansas, called together a highly informal group in a retreat-like venue to discuss their shared problems and activities regarding CME programming. The retreat was so well received that it became an annual event hosted by other medical schools. In 1969, the AAMC committee on CME recommended that the AAMC place CME among its primary concerns, that it urge its member schools to recognize CME among their major responsibilities , and that the AAMC establish an administrative unit to support CME activities arising within its component medical schools. These recommendations were not accepted and the AAMC in 1971 discharged its CME committee . In 1974, the steering committee of the AAMC Group on Medical Education, responding Evolution of the Society for Academic CME / Caplan & Lambiase 133 to growing CME pressures, agreed to expand its interests to include ‘‘the continuum of medical education,’’ thus seeming to include CME in its administrative and programmatic purview. By then, the Group on Medical Education contained so many component interests that the administrative leaders of medical school CME seldom felt their needs to be adequately met within the group. A second annual gathering, rather more focused on research issues than the retreats, was convened by Phil Manning, MD, CME director at the University of Southern California, in 1971 in Palm Springs, California. The need for organization , self-help, and recognition (even from many medical college deans and other faculty members) coupled with the too-little-too-late response of the AAMC (which might have seemed the natural base for such a group of academic professionals functioning in the world of CME) finally led the activists to form an independent organization. Birth At one of the Palm Springs meetings, interest in forming an independent organization began to crystallize. When it was learned, via help from the American Medical Association (AMA) legal o≈ce, that incorporation was not required, Manning and others felt that an opportunity for decision-making should be extended to all schools. That invitation led to a well attended discussion during the November 1975 AAMC meeting in Washington, DC, which generated much enthusiasm for forming an independent organization . Manning was chosen as the interim president of the fledgling organization. All schools were invited to attend the next Palm Springs meeting (as they were called) in April 1976. Robert Combs, MD, head of CME for the University of California at Irvine, presented a draft constitution and bylaws, which were adopted on April 2, 1976. SACME was now o√ and running, with Manning elected as its first president. Childhood The original constitution, adopted April 2, 1976, was amended in 1978, 1980, 1984...

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