Two nominations at the Medical Journalism Awards

Posted on by Bianca Pettifor

The team have received two nominations at this year’s Medical Journalism Awards.

Caitlin Tilley, Pulse Reporter, has been shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year, and Jaimie Kaffash, Pulse Editor, shortlisted for Editor of the Year at the Medical Journalism Awards.

The judges said ‘Caitlin impressed us with her dogged determination to discover the real reason behind the ambulance delays and she clearly has a great eye for a story. She sensed that handover delays were more than the odd unfortunate incident and was tenacious in her approach, amassing all the supporting evidence from a variety of reputable sources, as well as securing strong quotes from key individuals.’

Jaimie Kaffash offered judges a ‘positive light through which to view the prism of GP access, Pulse launched a new campaign for a better vision of the profession for GPs and patients. The aim was to offer positive thinking driven by GPs and create a context in which their skills could be used to revive primary care through simple changes. The constructive approach, a panel of GPs as a sounding board and GP surveys, led to a list of principles devised to make NHS leaders and ministers pay attention. Acknowledging that GPs were losing the PR war, Pulse made a creative stab at tackling the negative messages in a manner designed to serve both readers and patients.’

With a membership of over 450 health and medical writers, broadcasters and editors, the Medical Journalists’ Association seeks to promote excellence in journalism, encourage and support their membership and to provide opportunities for networking.

The winners will be announced in September.

IOTOD summer webinar

Posted on by Bianca Pettifor

Following on from the success of our spring webinar and annual conference, we are pleased to announce that the IOTOD Summer webinar ‘The opioid-dependance treatment triangle in prisons: medication, continuity, and harm reduction’ will be taking place on Wednesday 7th September at 16:00 BST.

The IOTOD summer webinar will be led by Professor Heino Stöver and joined by Dr Andrej Kastelic. This webinar will look at the treatment of patients with opioid use disorder within the prison system and their specific needs from treatment services. Additionally, this webinar will share best practice approaches for transferring this patient population on daily dose methadone or buprenorphine to long-acting buprenorphine (LAB) and discuss any associated benefits these treatment formulations may have in custodial settings. The event will conclude with a lively Q&A session.

Accessing our community of healthcare professionals via our media brands Pulse, Nursing in Practice, The Pharmacist, Hospital Pharmacy Europe and Hospital Healthcare Europe, as well as the well-established IOTOD community, the webinar will welcome addiction specialists, psychiatrists, GPs, community pharmacists, primary care nurses and other healthcare professional managing patients with opioid dependence and associated comorbidities. 

The IOTOD webinar ‘The opioid-dependance treatment triangle in prisons: medication, continuity, and harm reduction’ is supported by grant funding from Camurus. The educational programme is run at arm’s length from the financial supporters and all content is created by the faculty. No funder has had input into the content of the materials or presentations used in the educational programme. PCM Scientific is the medical education company acting as scientific secretariat and webinar organiser.

Transcending the template at EASD

Posted on by cogcogoraora

While international guidelines call for individualisation of diabetes treatment plans, there is little guidance on how to accomplish this, particularly in complex circumstances such as multimorbidity. A new educational initiative, led by Professor Silvio Inzucchi and Professor David Matthews – two authors of the 2016 ADA/EASD guidelines – aims to address this global practice gap. This began with an interactive, CME-accredited symposium on this important topic at this year’s annual EASD conference, which prompted over 70% of the audience to make measurable changes in their clinical practice.

Joint ADA/EASD guidelines have recently been published that recommend the individualisation of patient management, such as setting glycaemic targets adapted to patient circumstances, and escalating treatments strategically. However, there is a small mountain of available antidiabetic therapies, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, and little guidance on how to manage a non-standard patient. How does the practicing clinician set about addressing common, complex patient scenarios, in which diabetes presents alongside significant systemic comorbidities?

To address this is a new, CME-accredited educational programme: ‘Transcending the template: strategies for optimising complex patient management’. Bringing together a faculty of internationally renowned diabetes experts, TTT provides healthcare professionals with cutting-edge clinical guidance on the management of patients with important comorbidities, such as heart failure, obesity and chronic kidney disease.

TTT launched last week at the 52nd annual EASD meeting with an interactive symposium, accredited by three CME bodies: ACCME, EACCME and the local German accreditors, Bayerische Landesärztekammer. Feedback among participants was hugely positive, with 87.75% of the audience are better able to optimise treatment for complex patients, as assessed by a number of learning objectives.

The programme will continue over the coming months with a series of accredited online educational pieces, beginning with a live case study clinic on 29 November.

Transcending the template: strategies for optimising complex patient management is supported by funding from Novartis Pharma AG. All educational content and materials are created by the faculty in collaboration with PCM Scientific, the medical education company acting as scientific secretariat. The financial supporter has had no involvement in the creation or development of the educational content.

For more information about transcending the template, click here.

Why does CME matter?

Posted on by cogcogoraora

Continuing Medical Education (CME) is of consequence for all healthcare professionals but is especially important for physicians, many of whom are required to accumulate a set number of credits each year. In some countries, this is even a legal requirement – but it’s not just the formalities that make CME so important: professional development is more often fuelled by a personal desire amongst physicians.

But even if the desire to learn is palpable, finding the time to fit in extra learning is a significant barrier to participation.(1) Therefore, method of delivery and an engaging format is as important as the education itself. At PCM Scientific (PCMS), we pride ourselves in combining scientific rigour with creative educational design to develop innovative and ground-breaking programmes in European and global CME.

But what’s in it for Pharma? Today, more than ever, CME stakeholders are growing increasingly interested in (and demanding) measurable outcomes – not only does this add credibility to a given intervention but this is one of the unique aspects of CME. At PCMS, we believe we are at the forefront of achieving measurable change in Europe and beyond.

Indeed, as a founding member of the Good CME Practice Group, we not only believe that raising standards in the provision of CME is the right thing to do, but we can boast proven measurable practice change amongst physicians who have undertaken our programmes. (2)

Running a number of successful events and workshops, outreach-style roundtable meetings and online programmes over the years has resulted in some notable practice-change successes. For example, 87% of delegates attending our flagship IOTOD event in opioid dependence committed to making a change in their clinical practice; one year on, at least 70% had made those changes.

Similarly, 100% of respondents attending roundtable meetings in a global addictions programme reported changing their practice, noting positive changes in their patient-physician relationship, and their patients’ compliance and quality of life.

And it’s not just live events that have the potential to change practice: in 2013, a major online EU initiative was cited as helping to drive major national policy changes to broaden access to treatment in Poland and Portugal.

For more information about PCMS and the importance of CME, take a look at our website here.

References

  1. Stewart GD. Aust Health Rev. 2009; 33:47–56.
  2. Moore DE, et al. J Contin Educ Health Prof. 2009; 29(1):1–15.