Date: January 7th, 2021

Happy New Years to all the SGEMers. I know 2020 has been a bit of a dumpster fire. We have all faced challenges During the COVID19 global pandemic. I tried not to contribute to the large volume of information coming out on Sars-Cov2.

There were only four episodes that directly addressed COVID19:

* SGEM Xtra: Mask4All Debate

* SGEM#229: Learning to Test for COVID19

* SGEM Xtra: CAEP National Grand Rounds – COVID19 Treatments

* SGEM#309: That’s All Joe Asks of You – Wear a Mask

There have been many other FOAMed resources (REBEL EM, First10EM, EM Cases, St. Emlyn’s, and others) that have done a great job covering the pandemic.

This is an SGEM Xtra episode to announce a few exciting new things for 2021.

SGEM Continuing Medical Education Credits

The BIG news is that the SGEM will now be offering Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits for all SGEM episodes. Click on this LINK to find out more.

The Skeptics’ Guide to Emergency Medicine (SGEM) is part of the Free Open Access to Meducation movement (FOAMed). The SGEM tries to cut the knowledge translation window down from over ten years to less than one year with the power of social media. The ultimate goal is for patients to get the best care, based on the best evidence.

The FOAMed philosophy is that the information should be available to anyone, anytime, anywhere at no cost. This is similar to the philosophy of emergency medicine. It is the light in the house of medicine that is always on for anyone, at anytime, for anything. The SGEM has been free since it started in 2012 and will always be free open access.

Many of you have asked about getting CME credits for listening to the SGEM podcast and reading the SGEM blog. We know physicians (MD and DO), Nurse Practitioners (NP) and Physician Assistants (PA) have to collect so many CME credit hours for their respective professional organizations. This can be more challenging with the cancelation of in-person conferences and meetings.

The SGEM Hot Off the Press (SGEMHOP) episodes which are published once a month do offer CME credits. However, you can only claim these credits if you are a member of the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM). This new initiative will allow anyone to claim CME credits for all of the SGEM episodes.

Getting CME credits for the weekly SGEM episodes is something I have been wanting to do for years. The barriers to getting CME credits for the SGEM before now was that it takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money to get accreditation. The cancellation of in-person conferences due to COVID19 has been the push I needed to finally get this service added to the SGEM.

This project has been made possible through a partnership with a Legend of Emergency Medicine, Dr. Richard Bukata, and his Center for Medical Education (CCME) company.  CCME has been providing providing medical education in the form of audio programs and conferences since 1977.