Write Medicine Alexandra Howson PhD

Ruwaida Vakil, MSc is a consultant, speaker and a medical writer with expertise in medical communications and continuing medical education (CME). Ruwaida earned her MSc in Immunology at the University of Toronto and the Ontario Cancer Institute. She moved into developing educational content over 21 years ago and is a highly experienced writer of needs assessments. She has developed an effective system for ensuring that these kinds of CME/CE deliverables are framed by fair balance,  detail gaps in clinical practice, describe the likely education required to address those gaps, and foreshadow anticipated outcomes from education.
 
On this episode, Ruwaida shares valuable lessons for people considering a move into CME/CE writing, or for CME/CE writers who are considering working freelance.
 
 ✔️Establishing a CME/CE writing niche can be highly rewarding and sustainable especially if you establish yourself as an expert in writing needs assessments.
 
 ✔️Direct energy into marketing yourself as a CME/CE writer to ensure a steady stream of valuable and valued clients.
 
 ✔️Develop relationship management skills to ensure fair balance and content integrity.
 
 ✔️Use downtime to remain current in your specialist area. You can share new insights with clients and position yourself as a valuable partner in their work.
 
  ✔️Sales training and non-accredited education clients value CME writers as skilled content partners.
 
 Resources
Ruwaida has generously shared a range of resources for listeners. 
AMWA Best Practices for Writing CME Needs Assessments (members only)Pocket Training Best Practices for Writing CME Needs AssessmentsPresentation: Best Practices for Writing and Editing Needs AssessmentsDownloadable Poster: A Survey of Best Practices in Writing and Editing CME NeedsAMWA Blog: Best Practices for Writing CME Needs AssessmentsConnect with Ruwaida
ProMed Write LLC
e: ruwaida@promedwrite.com
LinkedIn
Twitter
Connect with Alex
Twitter
LinkedIn

Hosted and produced by Alexandra Howson PhD, CHCP
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This episode sponsored by CMEpalooza Fall

In this episode of Write Medicine, I'm joined by Don Harting to talk about CME writing competencies. What are the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that those writing CME/CPD content need to develop in order to create content that connects with and educates health professionals?
Medical writers often ask CME writers where to find training and how to get started in CME writing. Don says that clients share with him how challenging it is to find skilled writers for CME-related work. Don and his co-investigator Haifa Kassis think the medical writing field needs a competency model as a basis for training programs and skill-building that is directed toward the need for codified expertise in CME writing. They're using a Delphi process with a panel of experts to determine what those competencies might be. 

We discussed:
✔️ Changing practices for writing needs assessments
✔️ What a competency model for CME/CPD writers might entail
✔️ Why a competency model for CME/CPD writers is important
✔️ Key deliverables for CME writers
✔️ The role of Delphi method in determining competencies—what it is and how it can be used
✔️ Ranking function in Delphi
✔️ Anticipated outcomes from the Delphi approach
✔️ Ethics and fair balance in content development

Resources
Norman Dalkey and Delphi methodClemow D et al. Medical writing competency model—Section 1: Functions, tasks, and activities. Ther Innov Regul Sci. 2018;52(1):70-77Clemow D et al. Medical writing competency model—Section 2: Knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors. Ther Innov Regul Sci. 2018;52(1):78-88LockyerJ, Bursey F, Richardson D, et al. Competency-based medical education and continuing professional development: A conceptualization for change. Med Teach. 2017;39 6): 617-622Khurana MP et al. Digital health competencies in medical school education: a scoping review and Delphi method study. BMC Med Ed. 2022;22(1):129ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Medical  EducationConnect with Don
Twitter #cmechat or #meded
Blog: Occasional  posts  on CME-related topics

Connect with Alex
www.alexhowson.com
Join the Write Medicine community
Fall Series: WriteCME Clinic
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Produced and hosted by Alexandra Howson PhD, CHCP
This episode sponsored by CMEpalooza Fall 2022

According to a 2022 Gallup poll, the percentage of adults in the US who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual has doubled in the last decade, and stands at 7.1%. 
1 in 5 Gen Z adults identify as LGBT.
But health disparities persist among people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, or asexual and more (LGBTQA+). 
And discrimination against LGBTQA+ people is a key social determinant of health that is linked with high rates of psychiatric disorders, substance abuse,and suicide. Discrimination is evident even as people in LGBTQA+ communities navigate healthcare. 
My guest this episode is Dena Silva, an educator with a passion for creating education that enables clinicians to address the healthcare needs of LGBTQA+ communities. Dena is CME Director for an association management organization which includes oversight of 4 medical societies in California.

We talked about:
✔️ How to work with experts who really know about the challenges facing LGBTQA+ patients in health care
✔️ The role of education in supporting providers who are working with LGBTQA+ patients 
✔️ What providers need to know in order to meet the health care needs of LGBTQA+ patients
✔️ Strategies to build more representative and inclusive education programs 
✔️ How skilled facilitators are an asset 
Straight Talk as a Starting Point
Sometimes the conversation was tricky (failing forward!). It's straight talk, after all, rather than talk among people who are LGBTQA+.  We recognize that this conversation may be filled with things that we  stumbled over.  
But as Dena reminded me, in order to show up as an ally for LGBTQA+-affirming CME/CE, we need to learn how be sensitive about the ways we represent ourselves, the language we use, and the assumptions we make about who people are and what they need from healthcare providers. We welcome feedback for our own learning journey so we can improve the way we communicate about this topic and better advocate for LGBTQA+ health needs. 
The CME community has an opportunity to create education programs that increase awareness around health disparities for LGBTQA+ patients and that equip clinicians with tools to have a conversation with their patients about how they would like to be addressed and what they need from their health care providers. CME/CE can offer a safe space for clinicians to mess up, to say the wrong thing, and to find a way to course correct in curious, compassionate, non-judgmental ways. 
Without education leading the way, many clinicians will opt to not have this conversation at all.

Resources
Fenway Institute
National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center
Promoting Equitable and Inclusive Care: Healthcare Equality Index
Health Professionals Advancing LBGTQ Equality

Connect with Dena
email: dsilva@amgroup.us

Connect with Alex
Email: alex@alexhowson.com

Join the Write Medicine community
Fall Series: WriteCME Clinic
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Jayzona Alberto EdD, MS began her continuing healthcare education career by working on curricula for dentists and other clinicians before transitioning to the Stanford University School of Medicine, where she currently serves as Assistant Director of Continuing Medical Education. 

Jayzona and her team  work with e-learning tools such as animations, and in this episode she walks us through the process of creating an animation from start to finish. We discuss the importance of building relationships with the faculty who inform education content, the resources for CME that an institution such as Stanford can provide, and the potential for changing clinical practice that well designed CME/CPD fosters. 

Other topics we discussed include:
Differences in assessing knowledge versus assessing clinical change The importance of cultivating soft skills as both a clinician and an education provider How online education is changing the parameters of what is possible in CME And how to raise the visibility of CME within clinical or academic organizations.Resources
Septris

Connect with Jayzona
Email: jayzona.alberto@stanford.edu
LinkedIn

Connect with Alex
www.alexhowson.com
Email: alex@alexhowson.com
LinkedIn

Podcast Team
Host: Alexandra Howson PhD, CHCP
Shownotes: Emma Kolakowski
Sound: SuZen Marie

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On this episode of Write Medicine, my guest is Dr. Eve Wilson CHCP, FACEHP (she/her), a medical writer with deep expertise who helped me get started in the field.
While Eve is primarily a creator of continuing medical education resources, she also holds a PhD in microbiology, and uses her analytical background to inform her present-day work. As Medical Director at PlatformQ Health, Eve integrates new learning concepts with the more traditional didactic experiences to design a meaningful journey for the learner that leads to new insights as a result of their learning experience.   
In this episode, we talk about career origins, and the significance of “story” in a seemingly facts-only field. We talk about the creation of curricula, how to find balance variation of content and format, and  how to create and implement multimodal ways of learning. 
Other topics covered in this conversation include how Eve:
✔️ Started in medical writing and what she tells aspiring writers
✔️ Preps for continuing education projects
✔️ Gauges audience needs and adapts content accordingly

Resources
NBME Item Writing Guide Downloadable Planning Tool for Developing Multimodal CMEEve is running a professional workshop on Preparing CME Materials: Concepts, Strategies, and Ethical Issues,  AMWA 2022 Conference: November 4 2022Connect with Eve
e: ewilson@platformq.com
LinkedIn

Connect with Alex
e: alex@alexhowson.com
LinkedIn
Website

Podcast Team
Host: Alexandra Howson PhD, CHCP
Shownotes: Emma Kolakowski
Sound: SuZen Marie

Support the podcast
Support the show

Brian McGowan PhD, FACEP planned to be the team orthopedic surgeon for Notre Dame football. After a month of working in an orthopedic rehab hospital when he was in college, he realized that he didn't know what he wanted to be when he grew up, but it wasn't going to be a physician. 

Lucky then for us. 

Brian has worked in academic, industry, and is co-founder of ArcheMedX. But the places he's been do not mark who Brian is. It's his passion for behavioral science, learning science, and research into medical education methodology that make him inimitable in the field of continuing education for health professionals.
Join us for a conversation about what continuing education practitioners can do to help learners think more efficiently and effectively. Points of interest include: 

✔️ Which root skills are most important for CME storytellers 
✔️ What the Ebbinghaus experiment is in learning science 
✔️ How physical environments affect learning 
✔️ Brian’s love for the three-slide-per-page print option for PowerPoints 


Resources 
Brian’s reading list Alter A. Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces that Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave. NY: Penguin, 2013. McGowan B. #SocialQI: Simple Solutions for Improving Your Healthcare. 2012. Milkman KL, et al. Megastudies improve the impact of applied behavioral science. Nature. 2021;600:478-483. Murre JMJ, Dros J. Replication and analysis of Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve. PLOS One. 2015; 10(7): e0120644. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0120644Roediger HL, III. Remembering Ebbinghaus. Cont Psych. 1985;30(7):519-523.
Connect with Brian
ArcheMedX
Twitter
LinkedIn
email: brian@archemedx.com
Connect with Alex
Twitter
LinkedIn
email: alex@alexhowson.com