Hi friend,
Over the past couple of days, we have been on the road. Our youngest is at camp in Maine, so we took a road trip to Newport then Boston and finally to Maine. In a couple of days we are headed to meet up with some other fellow docs and their families in Greece.
During this time, I have been doing a lot of creating and thinking. As I was putting together my weight loss myth or fact CME program, I had this huge AHA moment. So often on social media, we see a flashy video (one that I could never make) with someone giving misinformation on something health related. And because the video is flashy and they have a huge following — they must be credible. Right?
Meanwhile… many doctors who are experts in their respective fields are frustrated. We are frustrated because we want to share the evidence, but we have a wimpy social platform that gets 1-2 likes and one of those likes is from a family member. Thanks, Mom — my platform would be nothing without you.
So then I thought… why are we holding back on putting the evidence out there? So I asked a few fellow docs and these were the top things I heard:
A. CME is so hard to get, and it is so much work, I don’t have the time.
B. I have been meaning to do it, just so much else going on.
C. My topic would not qualify as CME.
D. I have no idea where to even start.
I have had all of the same thoughts at one point or other. And here is how it played out for me.
A. CME was hard to get because I had no clue how to submit for it.
B. I was avoiding it because of point A.
C. I was not confirming this because of point A.
D. I didn’t want to have an idea because of point A.
When I finally had the guts to submit my first program, I gathered everything I could think of, sent it in, and hoped I had covered it. Then I waited. Then something came back missing, and I did it again.
I have spent a long time now on the other side of that process, as an ACCME-accredited provider reviewing other people’s submissions. The pattern is consistent. The physicians who struggle are almost never the ones with thin expertise. They are the ones who were never shown what a complete submission looks like, so they cannot tell when they are done.
So I built the thing I needed.
It is a free workspace with eight sections. Course details, needs assessment, learning objectives, module outline, disclosures, evaluation, provider checklist, and a final review that generates your packet as a formatted PDF.
Your progress saves automatically, which matters more than it sounds like it should. Nobody finishes this in one sitting. You will work on it for twenty minutes between clinic and a meeting, close the laptop, and come back four days later to find everything exactly where you left it.
A few things it deliberately does not do.
It does not accredit your course. It prepares you to submit to an accredited provider, and it tells you plainly to contact at least three and compare before you commit. The reference library includes the eight questions to ask each one.
It does not guarantee approval. That decision belongs to whoever reviews your submission.
And it does not hide that we are one of your options. The FIT Collective is an ACCME-accredited provider, so we say so where it is relevant and we price it openly. Your packet works with anyone.
Why I care about this more than I probably should.
Scroll any feed. The health advice reaching patients is being produced by people with production skills and no clinical accountability. Not because physicians have nothing to say, but because the barrier to saying it formally stayed high while the barrier to saying it casually collapsed.
Accredited education is how we take that ground back. It carries weight a post never will, it reaches colleagues who then reach patients, and it holds its author to a standard.
The only thing standing between most physicians and publishing one is a process nobody has explained.
So we explained it.
Start Your Packet HERE.
I believe in us! Talk soon.
Ali
P.S. It is free, there is no card, and there is no trial clock. If you open it, poke around, and decide the timing is wrong, your work will still be there whenever you come back.