The 20th Stanford Symposium on Emergency Medicine kicks off on April 15, 2019 on Maui, Hawaii. Our faculty members and administrative staff worked very hard over the last several months to prepare for another successful CME conference. But how do we guarantee value in a crowded CME marketplace? And what is the Experience from the Audience?

The 19th Stanford Symposium on Emergency Medicine at the Grand Hyatt on Kauai, Hawaii.

Image by Michael Gisondi, MD

The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME, United States) defines ‘continuing medical education’ (CME) as “educational activities that assist physicians in carrying out their professional responsibilities more effectively and efficiently “. The definition is purposely broad, to allow for creativity and innovation in an education space generally dominated by oddly-written learning objectives and Death by PowerPoint.

CME is a $2.5 billion dollar industry in the United States for the over 1,800 CME providers and their partner institutions. In 2016, a total 27 million physicians spent over 1 million hours participating in 159,000 CME educational programs. That’s a crowded marketplace.

Last year, at the 19th #StanfordAloha on Kauai, I reflected on this industry from my seat in the middle of the audience. What are the key measures of a successful, modern CME conference? For physicians who pay top dollar — and leave their clinical practices behind for a week — ROI goes way beyond the attainment of learning objectives.

I posed the question, “What makes for a wonderful CME conference experience?”, to #StanfordAloha faculty, conference attendees, and the President and CEO of the ACCME himself, Dr. Graham McMahon.

Click below to read their answers in, “The Experience of the Audience: Must-Have Design Elements for a CME Conference”, published online last year by International Clinician Educators Blog.

The 20th Stanford Symposium on Emergency Medicine is sponsored by the Stanford University Department of Emergency Medicine and runs April 15-19, 2019 on Maui, Hawaii.

April 15, 2019.