Satellite symposia are not just live events held in conjunction with your meeting. If you want another source of potential income, you may want to follow the lead of the Society of Interventional Radiology and launch one into cyberspace.

“We had an offshoot from one of the satellite symposia we did the CME accreditation for at this year's meeting — they put it online,” says Jan Richards, educational program development manager, Society of Interventional Radiology, Fairfax, Va. Richards adds that her organization, which handled the CME accreditation for the live event, is doing the same for the online course. “All we had to do was review the site, make sure again that there's no discussion of off-label use, and that there's a strictly unbiased presentation of content.”

Well, maybe SIR had to do a little more than that, such as create post-tests that online attendees have to pass with an 80 percent average to get credit, but then “we don't have to touch it again. They get their 80 percent, and they get their certificate then and there. We get a printout at the end of the month of people who've completed the course.” And just as organizations charge for the privilege of holding on-site satellites, SIR charged the supporter for its affiliation with the online version of the symposium. “It took some negotiation, but the end result is they got a direct link for the course on our Web site, we get the credit for doing all this cool online stuff, and our members have another CME option.”