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Transcript

Ailene Cantelmi: What struck me was that being an educator, providing education, is truly an act of generosity, and when you approach it that way as a faculty member, as someone who's heading into a session, it's such a beautiful thing, and even as a learner, to approach the education that you're coming into with this you know, in the spirit of generosity, because you can certainly be a generous learner in that room.

Erin Schwarz: Hello and welcome back to the Alliance Podcast, continuing conversations. I'm Erin Schwarz, editor in chief and chair of the Almanac Editorial Board. Outside of my volunteer role with the Alliance, I'm also the president of Vivacity Consulting. We are counting down the days to the Alliance 2025 Annual Conference, taking place January 8 through 11 in Orlando, Florida. I'm excited to welcome Ailene Cantelmi, program chair for the Alliance 2025 Planning Committee, today to delve into her goal of practicing what we preach, so that you will have a valuable conference experience. Ailene, welcome to The Alliance Podcast.

AC: Thank you, Erin, thanks for having me.

ES: Well, thank you so much for joining, and I know that you've been planning the Alliance 2025 Annual Conference for quite some time. So how did you get involved with this volunteer leadership role and what drove you to take it on?

AC: So this is a story that started in National Harbor in 2023 and I have always been wanting the opportunity to work with Chris Keenan and Pam McFadden, and they said you should be on the Planning Committee. And I said, "Great, that sounds fun." And then Chris called me a week later and said, "You should be vice chair with me." And so that was really the impetus for me was getting to work with those two leaders in our field and be able to contribute back to our community. I will say that when thinking about taking on the role, I was a bit intimidated by the role of being the chair for the Annual Meeting, because, in my mind, it's always a cornerstone of my year and all that goes into it. And I thought, well, if, if I'm feeling challenged and a little uncomfortable with that challenge, then it's probably something I should do. And so that was really the thing that I, you know, kind of cemented it for me was being able to look at this as an opportunity for professional growth myself, in addition to being able to work with those two ladies. So so that was really kind of the genesis of how I got involved. I was vice chair last year and chair this year, and that's a really nice model that the Alliance has, because I think it allows for a lot of that continuity between the meetings.

ES: Mm, hmm, yeah, I call that a stretch assignment. And yeah, you know it's it definitely takes some courage to take it on, and who knows where the this, the this will take you. So speaking of your own abilities, I am interested in your experience in the field of healthcare CPD. And what have you learned during your professional career that have you brought the planning committee this year and maybe what are you going to take away that you'll use in the future?

AC: I started working in CPD, actually at the ACCME, and then I've worked in associations, and now I'm working for medical education communication company. And I think the awareness of really how vast and varied our industry is has completely impacted the way that I think about putting together a conference like this. We have a variety of different types of organizations and a variety of roles that people play in those organizations, and frankly, it's a pretty tall educational order to meet the needs of all those folks. But I think that because I've worked in different capacities and different types of organizations, and certainly my work at ACCME, where I really started to understand how the work might look different and also might look similar depending on what type of organization you are, I think it's really helped me be able to take that 30,000 foot view on what all of our learners might need at this meeting. I'll also say that I think the work that I've done most recently that is in kind of the instructional or educational design and intentionality that's been the fun part of this work for me, I think that it's been a true joy to work with the volunteers that I'm working with and the staff at the Alliance to be able to come up with new ideas and creative things. And as a side note, I'm a theater person and not a CPD job, but certainly something that I find comes back in the work that I do, and certainly putting together this conference and thinking about it as a big production, or a thing that we as humans come together and experience together, that you know, my theater work has definitely kind of resonated in that way for me.

ES: That makes a lot of sense to me also, as I think about our adult learners transitioning into, you know, the world that we live in currently, and how do we ensure that our education isn't just falling behind and just looking so outdated. So thatleads me to then your conference theme, which is expand perspectives and inspire possibilities. So is that where you're going with this, like, try not to make your education outdated, or what does this theme mean to you? And in an ideal world, how would conference attendees reflect on the theme as they prepare for and then attend the conference?

AC: So, one of the things I've come to realize in putting this program together, is really what an opportunity it is for us as adult educators to educate each other. Yeah, that it's critically important that we are testing things on each other through these these conferences. I'm excited to see the type of research that might come out of ourselves as a community. I think we're often very focused in the education we're providing to our HCP learners and, by extension, to their patients, but how much work we can do internally that really can advance the field of adult education. We are our own little test unit, in a way, and I think that that's a super exciting thought. The "expand perspectives, inspire possibilities" theme for me was thinking about all of the expertise that can be found outside of our specific industry. I had the opportunity to work at a med Ed startup, and one of the coolest things for me about it was that there were a bunch of people who had no idea what CME even stood for, but they were experts in web design and marketing and a variety of different kind of areas. And I just thought there was so much to learn and so much creativity that came from looking outwards from the work that we do. I'm that type of learner, right? Like always try to make connections between something that might not seem relevant to what I do, and then finding a connection. And I think a lot of good ideas come that way, and so I wanted to encourage our community to think about that, to look outside of the traditional ways we do things, the traditional voices we listen to and be able to to really see where that might take us.

ES: And for attendees, I think that interconnectedness is really important, as you spoke about the different types of providers, different types of organizations, different types of careers within this CPD world, you know, thinking about, how can, how can that apply to me, even if you're in a session that's being presented by, perhaps, an organization that you don't relate to that as you prepare for the conference, I would challenge attendees to choose to go to sessions that maybe stretch assignment for them as well.

AC: 100%. So, we're working with our faculty pool really intentionally this year in helping build space for that type of thinking and that type of connection. Because I think some learners, they just instinctively do that, and for some learners, they need you to help them connect the dots, and that is the job of teachers is really helping kind of explore a concept and then really make it, help the learners, make it relevant to themselves. So this is certainly something we can use in our own professional work. And I think the thought of how we as learners show up at this meeting, and in each session that you go to, really dictates the quality of the experience for you. Last year in New Orleans, I was there as vice chair, we're just starting the chairship and starting to get things moving for 2025 and I set an intention for myself for that meeting, to just be present, wherever I was in, whatever conversation I was in, in whatever session I was sitting in, and to just be present in that moment. And it was a remarkable experience, not being pulled somewhere else, not checking my phone, not running to the next meeting, or it just made it such a difference. It was such an enjoyable experience. And I know that's not always possible for everybody and in every situation, but it certainly was an interesting intention to set and so I agree with you, Erin, I think I really encourage people to think about what sessions they select, and maybe there are some that they say, I don't know, but that's interesting to me, and give it a try.

ES: So, you do have lots of different priorities as you're planning this program out, but I understand you did focus on transparency, elevating the posters and outcomes, and also practicing what we preach as educators. So can you break down for our audience and expand on each of those priorities and how they might impact the conference attendees.

AC: The issue of transparency, it was something that Pam McFadden and I have really found kind of kinship on in her presidency, and then how we're working on the Annual Conference. And I think sometimes, with any big meeting like this, with members who are submitting abstracts, and putting together big program, sometimes it can feel like maybe it's built for someone else, or you don't really understand how it comes together. And I really thought that it's important for us as a community to understand how a meeting like this comes to be, all the people involved, all of the intentionality that goes into it, and so being transparent before the call for abstracts, for example. So anyone who's considering submitting, we did kind of special support for them. We did special support for the reviewers and the review process. You know? So, really trying to talk about what we're doing and be clear with expectations. And I think speaker development, we're working on that as well. I think that that transparency, ultimately, our learners have to trust us as a people putting together a meeting like this, and to me, transparency is a pathway to that. So the other two, posters, I think that the alliance meeting has, you know, kind of had a journey through the the COVID pandemic, and we're now kind of moving out, and I think we've gotten back to some of the practices that we like to to see and celebrate. And I think posters and research is such a critical part of what we do, and to really be able to elevate the work of our community who are doing that. So we did kind of special support for poster submissions. They've gone through a review process. We've brought back an oral poster presentation session, so three of the posters were selected for oral presentation, which is really lovely to be able to to have folks talk about the research that they're doing and for people to learn from that. And then we do have our poster session and judging that happens on-site. And so that's been just a real effort to mirror the priorities of the Alliance as an organization to really elevate research within our community. So I was happy to be able to find a way to integrate that more prominently in the program. Practicing what we preach, and outcomes, to me, are like two sides of the same coin, certainly practicing what we preach. We want to move away from things that we know don't work as well with adult learners. So you know, data dumps, didactic lectures, they have a place with something else. So this is very much a yes and kind of conversation. And so all of the intentionality of design and work that we've done has been to show through the meeting itself what quality looks like. And you think about that in all of the different elements that go into a meeting, the outcomes are a big part of it. That's a huge ask of us professionally, is how to plan for, measure, analyze and report learning outcomes. So we have been working this whole year with a special work group led by Kenny Cox and Jasleen Chahal. We partnered the planning committee and the research committee together on this task to really look at how all the different creatives ways we can measure outcomes of our own event. And so I'm really, really proud of that work, and I look forward to people kind of learning and hearing about it, because I think it's there's just a lot of room for creativity if we think about it as how do we, how do we test things on ourselves? How do we, how do we show ourselves, what it feels like to be an education that's participatory and designed for change and all of that good stuff.

ES: Right and I mean, and why are we asking our learners to do something that we're not asking ourselves to do? Right?

AC: Yeah, absolutely. And you think about, and I you think about something like outcomes. There's so much data that comes out of a meeting like this that you can look at to assess your impact, your success in different things, without overburdening your learners with survey after survey or redundant questions and things like that. So that it does take work, though, and so I was very lucky to be able to work with talented group of fellow volunteers on this. But that certainly the outcomes are certainly something where I put that in the practicing what we preach bucket for sure.

ES: Well, kind of moving along with that same theme. So talking about outcomes, talking about posters, talking about research. As someone who wasn't trained in clinical or educational research, I used to be really intimidated by these sessions. So can you maybe describe what an attendee might learn from the posters and how they could approach the poster sessions?

AC: Yeah, Erin, I'm actually with you on that. Like posters and research, it's not the thing that I have been trained in. It's not the thing that I spend most of my time doing. And so I too, kind of look at it in the same way of, how do you approach something like this if you're not somebody who can talk about statistics, or, you know, even consuming a poster, right of all the data and information. And so one of the strategies that we've taken with the poster session is to include an "ask me about" prompt for our poster presenters, so giving them something to plan for, and for people who are touring the posters and engaging with the posters, something to start, and even just a simple thing like that, can maybe get the conversation started. I think it also, I would encourage people who maybe aren't as familiar with posters or research to think about the great skill it takes to talk about your research in a way that helps people understand what you learned and how it might be useful to them, And that is a great professional development opportunity in just watching your colleagues do that, because ultimately, we're all probably going to be in a position of having to talk about some sort of research that we've done about our activities. So think about what you're seeing in the way that these folks do it, that you might learn from as well.

ES: Right, also being humble enough to ask the questions that you don't understand, you know, being willing to be a little exposed, and then having the presenters be probably really excited to tell you you know about their experience, what they've done, having that can create really strong bonds that I think the Annual Conference can produce friendships, collegial friendships and friend true friendships across, as we said, these vast different types of people where we can all ultimately help each other. So I really do love this idea.

AC: I think that's a great point. It's ultimately a poster session. Is an opportunity to showcase research. It is also a facilitated networking and community building event. I think if we approach it that way, it opens up a lot of opportunities.

ES: Okay, that's awesome. So another element of the annual conference are keynotes. And everybody typically gets very excited about the keynotes. As a west coast girl flying to the east coast, I gotta get myself out of bed and get there, but I I've never missed a keynote since maybe 20 years ago when everybody was talking and talking and talking about it, and I was like, 'Why did I not go?" So make sure you get to the keynotes. Can you tell us what unique perspectives they will bring to the theme of expand perspectives and inspire possibilities?

AC: I am very excited about our three keynote presenters. So Dr. Imanni Sheppard is our first she's out of the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, and she's the most like us, I guess I would say, she's the most representative of the experience of being an educator within medical education, so she does a lot of research and a lot of work in our space. She specializes in medical humanities, which is an interesting space of that kind of intersection between humanities and medicine, and she also brings a lot of expertise in the DEI and diversity space. So she's she has a lot to offer us as a community that's really anchored in the work that we do as we do it now, and what's possible. So I'm excited to see her. She's day one. Our second keynote is Dr. Siobhan Conaty, and she's also medical humanities, which is interesting that we have two folks that kind of are in this space that is straddling science and humanities, but she's an art historian and she trains doctors in art history skills that they then apply in clinical practice. To me this was the essence of expand perspectives, inspire possibilities. So I'm very excited to kind of have her walk through the work that she does to show us how you might take something completely different, completely something you would look at and say, how would these two things ever be connected, and show the power of thinking creatively about that. And then our last keynote, Damon Centola, what I'm really, really hoping folks make their travel to stay through the end of the conference. We have a couple of things, but Damon's keynote on day three, he is somebody who specializes in how behavior change happens within social networks. And the applicability of his research into how we think about designing education for our learners, I think, is profound. So again, bringing in this idea of like social science research into the work that we do and how it might inspire us to think about our education differently. So, I'm pretty excited. He's out of the University of Pennsylvania, and so he'll be joining us, but, but his research is very interesting when you start thinking about how we can change behavior, which is really what our business is, right?

ES: That's great. I can't wait to hear them. I am definitely staying through day 3.

AC: Well, I will also make a plug that we have brought in a closing session this year, and we're really excited about it, and I know people will start making their travel soon. And so I'm really hoping people will stay to allow I think we're going to be ending by 12:30. And it would be 12:30 on that Saturday, we would be ending up, and it's going to be the type of session where we're really sourcing it from within the meeting and having fun and kind of ending this, you know, community event that we've engaged in right with a with a little cherry on top. So I am hoping, between Dr. Centola's talk and the closing session, that people will really find a lot of value in day three as well.

ES: Well I think if you're making the effort to get there, to Orlando, it does make sense, if at all possible, to try to just squeeze every ounce of juice out of it. You know, make sure you get up in the morning and make all the way to the end. That would be my advice after going to like, 25 of these conferences.

AC: Yeah and you bring up a good point, because there comes a point every afternoon where we are like, woof, yeah, I don't know if I can take much more in. You know, learning is hard, and there's a good amount of space within the agenda to breathe and decompress or connect and have fun. So we're looking at the holistic and I think this is where a theater background might come into it too, is, I think, about the full experience of the meeting. So the planning committee really focuses on the content that you receive, but there's a lot of interconnectivity with the membership committee, or, you know, the exhibitors and things like that, of really trying to to make everything sing for the folks who come out.

ES: Oh that's awesome. As an attendee, I appreciate that so much. And so as we're wrapping up here, do you have any final tips, words of wisdom, or exciting hints that you want to share about the Alliance 2025 Annual Conference?

AC: I think the thing that I don't think we've spoken about is one of the things I've come to realize in putting this program together is how each step was its own professional development opportunity for the people who engage in it. So the process of writing your abstract you learn from that, the process of reviewing others abstracts, you're learning from that. Volunteering at the Alliance is certainly a professional development opportunity in and of itself, and I would encourage people to think about the CPD for themselves as a learner, so the continuous professional development that they can gain not just from the content that they encounter at the meeting, but how they digest new knowledge, how they turn it into actionable items. That's something we are always striving for that with our learners. Experience that yourself. We're going to have a webinar in early December where we're really going to talk to a panel of attendees on how they prepare for a meeting, how they engage in content, and how they take that content and bring it back into their real life. Because I think just as it's a CPD opportunity for abstract submitters or reviewers, it's always an opportunity for us as learners, as we head into a meeting like this. And I guess I would encourage people to think about it that way and carve space for themselves to have that experience.

ES: So, practice what we preach.

AC: Absolutely, absolutely. 

ES: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I really can't wait to see you and all of our listeners, January 8 through 11 in Orlando. 

AC: Thanks, Erin!