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OPINION
Good recordkeeping essential
for proving CME credits
By Fred H. Olin, MD
So, you’re at home, it’s a beautiful day, and you happen to look ethics and/or professional responsibility.”
out the window and see the postman pushing some mail into your “OK,” you say. “No problem. I’ve gone to several professional
street-side mailbox. It’s the first week of the month, so you know
that it’s probably mostly one form of junk mail or another: sale meetings, grand rounds, and so on, just shouldn’t be a problem.”
brochures, “free” meals that just happen to require you to listen to a Then you come to the line that says, “Please provide copies of cer-
pitch about retirement plans, campaign literature for politicians who tificates to document medical ethics and all other formal hours and
think that you live in a completely different district than you actually also a log of informal hours, if applicable, which should include dates
do, maybe a bill or two, and a much-anticipated issue of San Antonio and hours completed.” Certificates? Who has certificates? And what
Medicine. But wait! What’s this? It’s an envelope with the return ad- are “informal” hours? The letter says, “Informal hours include activ-
dress of the Texas Medical Board! Now, try to convince me that your ities such as reading journals, attending case conferences, etc.” Wait
little heart didn’t skip a beat, or that you didn’t gasp with apprehen- a minute. Who writes down the time he spends reading journals?
sion. Maybe not as much as you would have if it said Internal Rev- Come on, guys! Are you serious?
enue Service, but still…
Turns out that they are.
I received one of those TMB letters not long ago, and it turned There are some good things in the very small-print copy of the
out to be seemingly benign: I had been chosen, totally at random, to
confirm that I had obtained (as I had claimed on my registration Texas Administrative Code, Title 22, Part 9, Chapter 166, §Section
form) enough CME credits over my last two-year registration period. 166.2 Continuing Medical Education that the TMB is kind enough
The requirements are that you have to have at least 48 credits every to send to you. For example, if you managed to get more than the
24 months, and that at least 24 of them are AMA/PRA Category 1 48 Category 1 credits, you can carry the excess forward and apply
or its equivalent from the American Orthopaedic Association, the them toward the next registration period’s requirements. That’s nice,
American Academy of Family Physicians, the Texas Medical Associ- and I had 8.25 extras. I made a note.
ation, etc. Furthermore, at least two of those 24 must be in “medical
Anyway, being a compulsive soul, every time I went to a course or
meeting, I made an entry into an Excel spreadsheet. I’ve been doing
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16 San Antonio Medicine • June 2015
