Here's a nice response to the criticism of commercially supported CME that was included in a story about the recent launch of a curricula-development company called Lighthouse Learning. Written by Frank Britt President and CEO M/C Holding Corp., whose Pri-Med programs were cast in a somewhat unsavory light in that article, he explains the safeguards in place, etc., and reflects the pride all the CME providers I've ever spoken with have in their role as healthcare educators. Nicely done.
I didn't include it in my writeup of the company's launch, but Martin Samuels, MD, founding chair, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, and Lighthouse's director of medical education, said he has taught Pri-Med neurology courses in the past (15 or 20 consecutively), and he fully intends to continue to serve as Pri-Med faculty as well as faculty for his own firm's neurology curricula. It's just that, when he tried to develop a Pri-Med-like course for neurology, there was some sort of conflict between the curriculum he thought was necessary and what the company could get a grant for. He explicitly said, to me anyway, that he thought the Pri-Med model was a good one; "Their model just didn't work for specialties."
