JAOA • Vol 105 • No 12 • December 2005 • 573-
AOA COMMUNICATION (REPRINT) |
Like AOA Custom Publications, JAOA Now Offers Uniform Life Span for Quizzes
Carolyn Schierhorn
During its annual meeting in Chicago in July, the AOA Board of Trustees
decided to standardize the length of time DOs can earn continuing medical
education for completing quizzes in JAOA—The Journal of the American
Osteopathic Association. This decision expands the protocol that the
Board adopted at its midyear meeting in February for CME quizzes in the AOA's
custom publications.
Beginning with the JAOA's August 2005 issue, DOs will have 18
months from the date of distribution to complete and return each JAOA
quiz. The same protocol applies to the AOA's custom publications retroactive
to January 2004. The AOA's custom publications currently consist of
supplements to the JAOA, The Whole Patient supplements to The
DO, the AOA's Women and Wellness newsletter, and the AOA
Health Watch newsletter.
Previously, DOs could earn CME credit from quizzes in AOA publications from
the date of publication until the end of the three-year CME cycle in which the
publications were published. Under the former protocol, the CME quiz in an
issue of the JAOA or a custom publication published at the beginning
of a CME cycle had a life span of approximately three years, while a quiz in a
publication published at the end of a cycle had a life span of only a few
months.
"By standardizing the life span of all of our CME quizzes, we are
leveling the playing field because the AOA is no longer inadvertently giving
preferred treatment to those quizzes published early in a CME cycle,"
explains AOA Editor in Chief Gilbert E. D'Alonzo, Jr, DO. "Our new
protocol should alleviate any confusion DOs may have had about the longevity
of the CME quizzes in our publications."
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No Longer Tied to CME Cycle
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In the process of approving the new protocol, the AOA Board stipulated that
CME credits earned from the JAOA and AOA custom publications apply
toward the CME cycle in progress when DOs submit quizzes to the AOA.
"Now, each quiz counts for the CME cycle in which you take it, which
may not be the same CME cycle in which the publication was printed,"
notes Dr D'Alonzo, who is a professor of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary
and Critical Care Medicine at the Temple University School of Medicine in
Philadelphia. "Not only does that streamline the process for DOs
tremendously, but it also improves the educational value of the quizzes. DOs
will no longer be taking 3-year-old quizzes related to out-of-date
information, nor will they miss out on taking recent quizzes just because a
new CME cycle started shortly after the quizzes were published."
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Basics of CME Quizzes
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Quizzes in the JAOA and the JAOA's supplements carry two
hours of AOA Category 1-B credit. Quizzes in The Whole Patient carry
one hour of Category 1-B credit, as do quizzes in Women and Wellness
and AOA Health Watch.
In addition to being able to take the quizzes in the hard-copy versions of
the JAOA and the AOA's custom publications, AOA members can take the
quizzes on DO-Online, which is located at
www.do-online.org.
After logging on to the password-protected portion of DO-Online, AOA members
can find the quizzes by clicking on the link titled "CME &
Continuing Education" on the left-hand navigation bar.
DOs who decide not to take the quizzes can still earn a half-hour of
Category 2-B credit for each issue of the JAOA and custom
publications they read. The same credit is available for reading The
DO and other medical publications. To obtain this CME credit, DOs need to
submit a list of the journals they have read to the AOA Division of Continuing
Medical Education.
For more information about earning CME through AOA publications, AOA
members can call (800) 621-1773, Ext 8262, or (312) 202-8262. They can also
send e-mail to
drodgers{at}osteopathic.org,
fax questions to (312) 202-8200, or write to Delores Rodgers, Director,
Division of Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association,
142 E Ontario St, Chicago, IL 60611-2864.
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Footnotes
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Ms Schierhorn is assistant director of publications for The DO
magazine.
This article was first published in the August 2005 issues of The
DO magazine and JAOA.
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No Longer Tied to...
Basics of CME Quizzes
