There’s no avoiding it: CME credits are part of the job as a physician or advanced practice provider. State medical boards and healthcare organizations require CME because it’s important—for good reasons. Limited time and funds often lead healthcare providers to choose the first acceptable continuing education credits they see. However, CME is most valuable when it’s relevant to your practice and patients. Plus, learning is more enjoyable when you can immediately apply what you’ve learned.
Finding clinically relevant CME can be more difficult than simply signing up for the first course that seems “close enough.” With these tips (and perhaps AI, if use of the AMA’s pilot project Reconnect becomes widespread), finding the right continuing education for your practice doesn’t have to be a barrier to a more valuable CME experience.
1. Choose CME Relevant to Your Patients
Choosing CME that interests you is important. It makes learning more interesting and may even advance your career. But it’s also essential to earn credits focused on the types of patients you currently see every day. Look for continuing education covering the conditions, treatments, medications, and comorbidities regularly on your schedule. CME courses covering best practices, recent research, and new trends help ensure you’re providing the best care possible. If this CME is in person, you’ll likely meet other practitioners working in the same field, which furthers your opportunity to learn new things that could benefit your patients and practice.
2. Choose CME in Your Preferred Learning Style
The most clinically relevant CME won’t be valuable to you if it’s presented in a way that makes it difficult to learn deeply and apply to your practice. There are many ways to earn CME credit, including in person conferences, live webinars, grand rounds, downloadable presentations, question banks, journal articles, performance improvement activities, and more. If you know you learn best in one way (or know you have a hard time learning in another), try to find CME courses that accommodate that learning style. The more you take in while earning credits, the more you can apply to your practice right away.
3. Choose CME Courses You Can Mix and Match
Sometimes, not every session in a credit bundle or question bank is relevant. It may be worth wading through less relevant content to reach the lessons that do matter to your practice. However, it can be more efficient and effective to use CME providers that offer many different, shorter modules that can be mixed and matched to build a highly relevant CME course. This approach can reduce “information overload” and make it easier to apply what you learn.
American Medical Seminars breaks down our live conferences into 5-credit courses available on demand. This approach allows busy providers to fit clinically relevant CME into their schedules when and where it’s convenient for them, without sacrificing quality.