Like AOA Custom Publications, JAOA Now Offers Uniform Life Span for Quizzes
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Carolyn Schierhorn
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 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.”
No Longer Tied to CME Cycle
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.”
Basics of CME Quizzes
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@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.
This article was first published in the August 2005 issue of The DO magazine and has been updated for the current issue of the JAOA (May 2006). 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.
The American Osteopathic Association
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Articles in the same Issue
- AOA COMMUNICATIONS (REPRINTS)
- Like AOA Custom Publications, JAOA Now Offers Uniform Life Span for Quizzes
- LETTERS
- Time to Accept Allopathic Physicians Into AOA-Approved Residencies?
- Will the Last DO Turn Off the Lights?
- EDITORIALS
- The National Report Card on the State of Emergency Medicine
- AOA COMMUNICATIONS (REPRINTS)
- With Second Essay Competition, History Committee Offers More Incentives to Explore Profession's Past
- CLINICAL PRACTICE
- Mechanism-of-Injury Approach to Evaluating Patients With Blast-Related Polytrauma
- Nonobstetric Lacerations of the Vagina
- SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS
- Characteristics of Osteopathic Physicians Choosing to Practice Rural Primary Care
- CASE REPORTS
- A 44-Year-Old Woman With Hematemesis and Cutaneous Hemorrhages as a Result of Superwarfarin Poisoning
- STUDENT CONTRIBUTIONS
- Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment of a 26-Year-Old Woman With Bell's Palsy
- MEDICAL EDUCATION
- Relationships Between Scores on the COMLEX-USA Level 2-Performance Evaluation and Selected School-Based Performance Measures
- Survey on the Clinical Skills of Osteopathic Medical Students
- LETTERS
- Progressive Idea for Osteopathic Medical Education
- Response
- Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment is for All DOs
- Osteopathic Physicians and Disaster Relief
Articles in the same Issue
- AOA COMMUNICATIONS (REPRINTS)
- Like AOA Custom Publications, JAOA Now Offers Uniform Life Span for Quizzes
- LETTERS
- Time to Accept Allopathic Physicians Into AOA-Approved Residencies?
- Will the Last DO Turn Off the Lights?
- EDITORIALS
- The National Report Card on the State of Emergency Medicine
- AOA COMMUNICATIONS (REPRINTS)
- With Second Essay Competition, History Committee Offers More Incentives to Explore Profession's Past
- CLINICAL PRACTICE
- Mechanism-of-Injury Approach to Evaluating Patients With Blast-Related Polytrauma
- Nonobstetric Lacerations of the Vagina
- SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS
- Characteristics of Osteopathic Physicians Choosing to Practice Rural Primary Care
- CASE REPORTS
- A 44-Year-Old Woman With Hematemesis and Cutaneous Hemorrhages as a Result of Superwarfarin Poisoning
- STUDENT CONTRIBUTIONS
- Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment of a 26-Year-Old Woman With Bell's Palsy
- MEDICAL EDUCATION
- Relationships Between Scores on the COMLEX-USA Level 2-Performance Evaluation and Selected School-Based Performance Measures
- Survey on the Clinical Skills of Osteopathic Medical Students
- LETTERS
- Progressive Idea for Osteopathic Medical Education
- Response
- Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment is for All DOs
- Osteopathic Physicians and Disaster Relief
