Convenient CMEs

by Scott Sturman MD

Point for Contemplation - photo by Ty Hutchins MD

Not all Tricks of the Trade have to do with clinical skills.   Regulatory agencies require anesthesiologists to acquire CMEs throughout their careers.  More often as not, conference locations and times are not convenient for busy practitioners, particularly those with school age children.

Companies like American Seminars Institute (ASI) offer CMA approved Audio Digest CME courses which can be taken where and when it is most convenient for a physician.  Each course garners twenty CMEs which is documented painstakingly by ASI.

To register for a course, one can contact the company by phone or Internet.  Simply inform them of the course of interest and where and when it will be taken.  Courses are offered in anesthesiology and a number of other disciplines like cardiology and internal and emergency medicine which are germane to our specialty.  Tuition fees will cost your professional corporation $490 for a 20 CME course and $395 for 10 CMEs but are more than offset by corporate expenses for transportation, food, lodging, and entertainment incurred to attend the course.

About a week to ten days prior to departure, the company will mail a packet to the enrollee which includes ten lessons worth two CMEs apiece in both DVD and printed format.  These lessons are completed while on location at the course site and the answer sheets mailed to Audio Digest within a week after returning home.  The CMEs will be acknowledged formally when a certificate of completion  and a list of successfully completed courses are mailed to the attendee. 

  

Turtle Descent - photo by Ty Hutchins MD