Other notable sessions included the opening keynote by J. David Haddox, DDS, MD, vice president, Health Policy, Purdue Pharma LP, who sprinkled Mark Twain quotes into his exploration of bias and conflict of interest. He also proposed that COI isn’t all about financial relationships and that perhaps there should be two types of disclosures—one financial, and one of the nonfinancial relationships that could bias faculty and others involved in CME. As he said, “I am human. Therefore I am biased.”

Members of the CME Coalition, a group that lobbies in Washington, D.C., on behalf of CME interests, joined Rockpointe Corp. President Thomas Sullivan and the Coalition for Healthcare Communication’s John Kamp, PhD, JD, on the stage to fill the audience in on the latest on healthcare reform, specifically what all the rhetoric and regulations like the Sunshine Act could mean for CME. So far, while they remain hopeful that CME will be excluded from the Sunshine Act’s disclosure requirements, the presenters agreed that there remains a strong possibility that it won’t. Stay tuned.

Carolyn Clancy, MD, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, reprised a plenary she presented in January at the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions annual conference with a spin on how collaboration can help close the gaps between what can be done to better treat patients and what we are actually doing. She also talked about education’s role in making clinicians better informed and prepared for a world where the amount of information available is always expanding. “We are building systems to help us learn from what we do every day,” she said.