Next up after the keynote was the AMA's Bette-Jane Crigger, PhD, who walked us through 10 myths about the recently passed CEJA Report 1-A-11.
Call me crazy, but a lot of it seemed to be that famous word-parsing thing that CME professionals tend to do, where meaning gets read into something that perhaps doesn't deserve it, and where it gets glossed over in areas where perhaps it deserves more attention. Or is just too vague to really draw meaningful conclusions, a not uncommon thing in this field, it seems.
Example: Myth 1 was that the CEJA report prohibits industry support of CME. No, she explained, it doesn't prohibit it; "The goal is to gain independence from industry support." Not prohibited, but try to avoid it if at all possible.
Or take Myth 6, that it just duplicates the ACCME's Standards for Commercial Support. Yes, there are some similarities, she said, but it also offers complementary guidance, since it's aimed toward physicians, where ACCME's SCS are for CME providers.
It was interesting, but she really didn't do any myth-busting. Instead it was more of a comparison of complaints received against the goals the report tried to achieve.
One of the most interesting questions went unanswered: How will this new report affect the criteria for PRA Category 1 credit? That's still to be determined, she said. Likewise, while it only addresses accredited CME, "the principles should be thought to be equally germane" to other activities (such as those for maintenance of licensure and maintenance of certification) as well.
