A decade ago, Curtis Olson PhD, then editor of the Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, made 20 predictions about the future of Continuing Medical Education (CME) and Continuing Professional Development. Those predictions included a shift from the individual to the team as the primary unit of learning, a greater focus on interprofessional learning, more frequent use of evaluation models that tell us not only what works, but also under what conditions and why, and less relia...
Jan 30, 2024•55 min•Season 7Ep. 94
Have you ever felt like a failure in your role as a CME/CE professional? I have. But what if failure could actually enhance your CME/CE content creation instead of hindering it? Creating fresh CME/CE requires taking risks, but with risk comes failure. As errors and mistakes are part of the learning process, CME/CE professionals can struggle with how to evaluate failures safely and constructively. In today's Monday Mentor, you'll discover practical strategies to openly assess activities or progra...
Jan 29, 2024•11 min•Season 7Ep. 93
Have you ever felt trapped in your career, sensing a need for change but unsure where to begin? Have you felt a nudge to make a career change but fear holds you back? Yep, I’ve been there. Making a major shift in your work can be daunting, but ignoring calls for change won’t make them go away. In a world where career transitions are increasingly common yet daunting if you are feeling the pull towards change but held back by uncertainty and fear, or if you are aware of an immanent push, this epis...
Jan 24, 2024•49 min•Season 7Ep. 92
Welcome to Monday Mentor, a Write Medicine series. I’m your host Alex Howson and today Helen Folsam is back to share insights on CME medical writing. Helen Fosam is a seasoned medical writer with over 20 years shaping her career, beginning in academia in the UK then moving to the US where she discovered medical writing working at companies like Ince, WebMD, and small remote startups. She launched her own medical writing consulting business, The Edge Medical Writing, through which she founded the...
Jan 19, 2024•37 min•Season 7Ep. 91
Do you ever wonder about CME/CE in Africa? Or how you could use your content creation skills to improve health outcomes globally? This episode explores how one CME/CE writer is using her expertise to directly improve patient care in Africa. Helen Fosam is a seasoned medical writer with two decades of experience shaping her career. Today we’re talking about the significance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in clinical research and the dearth of CME in resource-limited settings like Africa that...
Jan 17, 2024•27 min•Season 7Ep. 90
Do you know the difference between CME, CE, CPD, and lifelong learning? Confused by all the terminology in continuing education for health professionals? Understanding the distinctions is key to navigating the world of accredited education and critical for delivering patient care based on the latest clinical evidence. These terms are like a variety of dishes at a buffet. CME is like a specially crafted, formal meal designed for licensed physicians, complete with specific flavors and presentation...
Jan 13, 2024•9 min•Season 7Ep. 89
Are you overlooking a major yet often overlooked contributor to climate change through your digital content creation and strategies? Are you unintentionally contributing to the planet's digital carbon footprint? As CME/CE content creators and strategists, we likely don't consider the climate impacts of our websites, documents, videos, and other digital materials. However, all that data requires substantial energy to power the creation, storage, and transfer of bytes, which generates carbon emiss...
Jan 10, 2024•43 min•Season 7Ep. 88
Transform your CME/CE content with Write Medicine! Struggling with how to create continuing medical education content for health professionals (CME/CE)? Write Medicine is your definitive guide to mastering the craft of high-quality CME/CE content creation that lifts learning and changes behaviors. Write Medicine is hosted by Alexandra Howson PhD, CHCP, FACEhp, a seasoned writer and researcher with decades of experience in healthcare, education, and CME/CE. Tune in every Wednesday for our feature...
Jan 09, 2024•3 min
Have you ever wondered how academics or researchers transition into a successful career in medical communications (or medcomms)? With academia becoming increasingly challenging, many PhDs, scientists, and researchers are considering new careers that allow them to apply their expertise. Maybe you are too. As part of our First Friday Features, episode 87 of Write Medicine brings you an exclusive conversation with Vicky Sherwood, a seasoned medical writer with a rich background in academia and medc...
Jan 05, 2024•43 min•Season 7Ep. 87
Are you curious about how artificial intelligence (AI) can augment medical writing? Or are you wondering how AI could change the way we approach continuing education for health professionals? Listen in as Núria Negrão PhD shares tangible strategies for content creation. As advances in AI lead to fears about human jobs being replaced, medical writers and CME/CE professionals are wondering how to adapt. Núria explains key opportunities to enhance your skills and stay ahead of the curve. We take a ...
Jan 03, 2024•24 min
Winter Solstice is a time of stillness that we can harness to reflect on our past year's journey. It's an opportunity to celebrate growth and anticipate what's coming next. So join me to reflect on memorable moments from the podcast this season and sneak a peek into the future of Write Medicine in 2024. Season Highlights The power of reflection to realign "why" Innovations like AI for ideation and adult learning principles How education can build gender equity in health professions The potential...
Dec 13, 2023•23 min•Season 6Ep. 85
Show Notes What privacy concerns do you have related to generative AI tools like ChatGPT? Do you worry about the internet scraping that comes with gen-AI territory? Are you searching for practical advice on how to effectively use generative AI for creating continuing education content for health professionals? These questions and more are the focus of today’s episode of Write Medicine. My guest is medical writer and generative AI expert Nuria Negrao and we’re talking about how AI models like Cha...
Dec 06, 2023•19 min•Season 6Ep. 84
Show Notes What existing skills and competencies do you know you have for sure? How can you put those skills to use to find new professional opportunities? Understanding and acknowledging your skills is crucial for building confidence and pursuing new professional opportunities. My guest today is JoAnna Pendergrass DVM, a veterinarian turned medical writer who has built a successful solo business creating content focused on pet health and educating pet parents. If you have participated in the fr...
Dec 01, 2023•44 min•Season 6Ep. 83
Show Notes Are you angsting over the potential impact of generative AI on your work? Are you hyper-dialed into ethical considerations around the potential for copyright infringement, data ownership, and authorship when using generative AI tools like ChatGPT? Whatever your questions or concerns are about generative AI, this technology is poised to transform how we create continuing education content for health professionals. Today’s episode is the first in a 2-part series of episodes that focus o...
Nov 29, 2023•36 min•Season 6Ep. 82
Show Notes Are you running correlation analysis in your education activity and program evaluation? Are you having conversations with your colleagues, as listener Natalie Goldberg is, about how access to practice data is potentially redefining how we think about Moores outcomes at levels 5, 6, and 7? In part 1 of this 2-part series of conversations with Katie Lucero Ph.D., Vice President, Audience, Analytics, Outcomes & Insights at Medscape we began to open up the black box that houses the re...
Nov 22, 2023•26 min•Season 6Ep. 81
Show Notes If you’re a continuing medical education provider, do you ever feel as though your approach to outcomes measures could use some spice? Do you wonder what are we missing when we don't include process measures in outcomes evaluation? Or when you are working on outcomes measurement, analysis, and crucially, writing that outcomes report, do you find yourself wondering how to use confidence as an indicator of behavior change, or where self-efficacy fits into the outcomes mix? That’s our fo...
Nov 15, 2023•27 min•Season 6Ep. 80
If you work in CME, especially in oncology, then sooner or later you’re going to consult American Cancer Society resources. But how much do you know about the history of this organization? And how much do you know about Mary Lasker and her contributions to cancer research? Hello, hello, and welcome back to Write Medicine, the podcast that explores best practices in creating continuing education content for health professionals. I'm your host, Alex Howson, and in today's episode, we explore a sto...
Nov 08, 2023•45 min•Season 6Ep. 79
If you are a Write Medicine listener and are tuning into our First Friday Feature, you are likely a medical writer who is curious about medical writing in the specialized world of CME and I think you'll enjoy this conversation with Dr. David Mendes, who shares insights from his journey transitioning out of academia and into a career in medical writing. David completed his PhD in neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal. During his graduate studies, he realized that landing a professorship w...
Nov 03, 2023•52 min•Season 6Ep. 78
Plain language is a communication style that aims to simplify complex information and make it more accessible to a wider audience. It involves using clear, concise, and jargon-free language to convey information in a way that is easily understood by the intended audience. The goal of plain language is to eliminate confusion, improve comprehension, and enhance communication between the sender and receiver. In this episode, I speak with Ahava Leibtag, an expert in plain language and digital conten...
Nov 01, 2023•41 min•Season 6Ep. 77
As we know, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many in-person events to go virtual. While platforms like Zoom made the transition possible, “Zoom fatigue” quickly set in. Audiences have tuned out of long presentations and passive learning formats that are also typical of in-person conferences. To combat Zoom fatigue, virtual event organizers need to completely rethink their approach. So to get some ideas on how to do this, I spoke with Chris Elmitt, an expert facilitator and CEO of the virtual event p...
Oct 25, 2023•38 min•Season 6Ep. 76
In today’s episode, I speak with nurse educator Martha Johnson MSN, RN, CEN, otherwise known as Breakout RN, about using active learning strategies to engage nursing students for whom it is also often challenging to connect theory to bedside practice, especially in the context of unique patient scenarios. As a new educator, Martha's first theory course was PowerPoint-heavy with a scripted lecture. She started BreakoutRN to develop a learner-centered model and saw firsthand the improvements in st...
Oct 18, 2023•43 min•Season 6Ep. 75
In this episode, I spoke with Sean Sodha, founder of medical content platform Grafi AI, about the promise and pitfalls of generative AI for healthcare content creators. Sean shared his unique perspective on navigating this emerging technology. We take a comprehensive look at the role of generative AI in medical content creation and explore its promise for augmenting human skills and improving productivity in the medical writing space.Key Takeaways Generative AI can greatly accelerate drafting an...
Oct 11, 2023•48 min•Season 6Ep. 74
In today's episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Michelle Rizzo, a trained journalist who turned her curiosity and life-long interest in medicine into a thriving career as a CME writer. Michelle currently works as an associate medical director and senior writer at a boutique CME content company, where she often finds herself writing and researching about rare diseases. She was kind enough to give us a glimpse into her writing process and share some actionable tips for getting into the fie...
Oct 06, 2023•39 min•Season 6Ep. 73
If you are at all interested in the status of women in medicine and the role of education in addressing gender inequities in the health professions, then you’re going to love today’s episode. I’m speaking with Rebecca Ortega about improving gender equity in cardiology. Rebecca is the Founding and executive director of Women as One, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting talent in medicine by offering professional opportunities to women cardiologists through several different programs. 1...
Oct 04, 2023•43 min•Season 6Ep. 72
I’m really excited to have today’s conversation with Dr. Barbie Honeycutt, a faculty development consultant and host of the podcast Lecture Breakers. Barbi is an expert in the field of active learning and is known for her work on creating engaging and effective learning experiences for students. She is the founder of FLIP It® and Interactive Lectures, two popular strategies for incorporating active learning in the classroom. Here’s what you’ll learn in today’s episode. 1. Start with the learner'...
Sep 27, 2023•51 min•Season 6Ep. 71
Instructional design for online courses is a crucial aspect of modern CME/CE. And as online learning has grown over the last 15 years or so, especially so since 2020, instructional designers play a vital role in creating effective and engaging CME/CE content for learners. In today’s podcast episode, I’m speaking with Mark Hagerty, an expert in effective instructional design in the context of CME/CE with a passion for behavioral and life sciences. 🩺💡 Mark shares insights from his three-decade-l...
Sep 20, 2023•39 min•Season 6Ep. 70
Even those of us who’ve had surgery probably haven’t given much thought to the person who put us under and carefully monitored us while the surgeon did their work. I’m here today with anesthesiologist, author, and test pilot Dr. David Alfery to discuss his book, Saving Grace: What Patients Teach Their Doctors About Life, Death, and the Balance in Between, which was published by Wipf and Stock earlier in 2023. David was a cardiac anesthesiologist for over 30 years, taking patients to the brink of...
Sep 13, 2023•41 min•Season 6Ep. 69
If you are an education provider tasked with designing virtual education, or you work with providers involved in online group learning and experiences, today's episode is a must-listen. Gwyn Wansbrough is a facilitator who designs and leads interactive online sessions. Gwyn shares how to run effective and engaging live online sessions and guide a group to achieve a specific outcome. The more we talked, the more I realized that the preparation process for facilitation is akin to conducting a need...
Sep 06, 2023•55 min•Season 6Ep. 68
Sarah Nelson PhD is a medical writer and founder of Green Pen Solutions Ltd. She is a leading mentor and trainer for medical writers all over the world. Her mission is to encourage more medical writers into Medcomms and help them create a sustainable career path that builds on their personal strengths. Sarah's wide-ranging knowledge comes from over 17 years as a medical writer, her experience leading large editorial teams, and from mentoring writers in over 20 agencies across the medcomms indust...
Sep 01, 2023•46 min•Season 6Ep. 67
Welcome back to the Write Medicine podcast! Before we get into today’s topic on the power of experience in learning, I wanted to share with you a message from Mallory Kane. Mallory is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Connecticut who is creating an anthology of essays based on testimonies from people whose lives have been impacted by cancer. Whether you are a patient or survivor, a family member or caretaker, she wants to hear from you. She is using this anthology to highlight t...
Aug 30, 2023•24 min•Season 6Ep. 66
