JAOA • Vol 106 • No 7 • July 2006 • 436-
AOA COMMUNICATION (REPRINT) |
Like AOA Custom Publications, JAOA Now Offers Uniform Life Span for Quizzes
Carolyn Schierhorn
Ms Schierhorn is senior editorial project manager for the AOA Department
of Publications.
During its annual meeting in Chicago in July 2005, the AOA Board of
Trustees decided to standardize the length of time DOs can earn continuing
medical education (CME) credit 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 2005
for CME quizzes in the AOA's custom publications.
Beginning with the JAOA's August 2005 issue, DOs have had 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 magazine, 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 3-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 3 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 2
hours of AOA category 1-B credit. Quizzes in The Whole Patient carry
1 hour of category 1-B credit, as do quizzes in the AOA's 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
http://www.do-online.org.
From DO-Online's home page, AOA members can find the quizzes by clicking on
the link titled "CME" on the left-hand navigation bar.
Osteopathic physicians 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 AOA
custom publications they read. The same credit is available for reading
The DO magazine 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 credit through AOA publications, AOA
members can call (800) 621-1773, extension 8262, or (312) 202-8262. They can
also send e-mail to
drodgers{at}osteopathic.org,
fax questions to (312) 202-8202, 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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This article was first published in the August 2005 issue of The
DO magazine and was updated for the May 2006 issue of the JAOA.
This article will be republished periodically in the JAOA and other
AOA publications until December 31, 2006, which marks the end of the
2004–2006 CME cycle.
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No Longer Tied to...
Basics of CME Quizzes
