Sept./Oct. 2006

When Bruce J. Bellande, PhD, took over as executive director of the Alliance for CME in 1996, all the organization owned were two file cabinets, a desk, a Mac computer, and some odds and ends. The Alliance had just moved from Chicago to Birmingham, Ala., and Bellande was the only full-time employee; in fact, he was the first full-time executive except for his predecessor, Frances Maitland. Now, 10 years later, the staff comprises eight full-time employees and four part-time employees, membership has reached a record high of more than 2,200, operating reserves exceed $700,000, and the 2006 annual conference attracted more than 1,600 participants.

Bellande began his tenure at the Alliance with the same goal he still cites as his mantra: elevating CME as a profession. And he still has those two file cabinets in his office. As for his future after he steps down as executive director at the conclusion of the 2007 annual conference, Bellande says he is considering several exciting options but hasn't yet made a decision.

His passion and commitment to CME began in the early 1970s, when the University of Mississippi School of Medicine received a block grant from the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to teach local physicians about the latest advances in management of cancer, stroke, and cardiovascular disease. The physician directing the project had no experience in education and asked Bellande to help him. Bellande, who had received his degree in biology at the University of Mississippi, had been serving as liaison to the medical school's postgraduate education committee. (He went on to complete his graduate and doctoral degrees at the same university.) He and the project director conducted a statewide needs assessment and created a network delivering clinical education to small communities across Mississippi. Bellande was hooked on CME. “It was just wonderful to have that opportunity. At that time — the early seventies — they had the resources to get all that done. It charged up my batteries,” he recalls. “I said, this is really interesting and very much needed.”

Bellande continued his work in CME with a 10 year stint as director of education at the Southern Medical Association, also in Birmingham, before joining the Alliance for CME. We talked with him about his strategy for elevating the Alliance's visibility, the challenges faced by the CME community today, and his hopes for the future.

MM: What was the biggest challenge you faced as executive director?

The No. 1 challenge was transferring the Alliance from an [organization run by an] association management firm into an independent, self-sufficient association. When I took over, Frances Maitland was the only paid employee of the Alliance through the contract with the management firm. The other services were provided by the firm's staff. The Alliance had no system for accounting, no system for membership database management, none of its own insurance. Everything was done by the firm. I mean everything — the whole shebang.

First, I had to make a decision about how we were going to manage the membership, and I did a lot of research, looking at membership data management software. There are a lot of companies out there; you can pay from $20,000 to $200,000 — and of course back then the Alliance's [total operating] budget was maybe $500,000. So, I had to try to select something that would meet our needs and was affordable. Which I did. We're still using it. I had to set up all the financials: how we would collect money, how we would disperse money, how we would account for money, do our audits; and I had to establish relationships with law firms and audit firms and accounting firms. It really was like starting from scratch. Within the first two weeks, I had pretty much done the research and gotten the database for membership and begun setting up the financial and legal relationships and office space that we needed and started recruiting staff.

MM: Who made the decision to switch from the association management firm and why?

Actually, it was mutual. The board members at that time felt that they wanted the leadership [to separate from the association management firm] and I would not have taken the position if the Alliance was not going to be an autonomous association.

If you're going to grow and mature as an association [it's difficult if] you're so reliant on someone else. Those people don't really work for you, they have no real sense of loyalty. It's you versus the management firm. I felt the Alliance had the potential to be its own association, to run itself, and to grow in so many ways, and I just didn't see that necessarily happening with the former structure.

MM: What is the accomplishment you're most proud of?

I would say the Alliance's position today as the premier [CME industry] association. An early goal of mine and one that I've maintained all along was to enhance the Alliance's visibility and quality, [its position of] trust and value, to capitalize on the opportunities for the Alliance to be engaged in making the decisions that influenced or controlled the CME enterprise and its environment.

But one of the challenges I had in taking over an organization that was managed by an association management firm was to increase the Alliance's involvement with other groups that we had never worked with before, such as the American Medical Association, the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, the American Board of Medical Specialties, and the Federation of State Medical Boards. And that was a real challenge, because we weren't at those tables. In several instances, [the organizations] had never heard of the Alliance. Then, we communicated to our members our visibility and the value of [positioning] the Alliance at tables and at meetings where important decisions were being made, keeping members abreast of what was happening and the implications for them. We also translated [those developments] into programming at the annual conference.

[Increasing the Alliance's visibility] really put us in a more proactive position of trying to determine our fate as opposed to being in a retroactive, ‘It happened; like it or lump it’ position — and that enhanced our value to members. [We could] say this is an organization that is shaping the future of the CME enterprise.

MM: What is the biggest positive change you've seen in CME during your career?

The most positive change is the professionalization of CME. The quality of what people do and how they do it has changed. It's going to have to change a lot more but [those transitions are] under way. I think the strategic imperatives of the Alliance are really going to set the foundation in place.

(See sidebar, page 38, for the Alliance's new strategic plan.)