AKMG CME REPORT TO GENERAL BODY 8/14/2021

Like every organization in the world, AKMG also had to rethink how best to continue to serve its members during the COVID pandemic. Under the dynamic leadership of Dr. Bhatt and other senior leaders of AKMG, the pandemic has counter-intuitively strengthened our organization. While the response to COVID-19 from many bigger organizations has been ambivalent, uneven, and chaotic – AKMG have taken the challenge and made the organization better and stronger, with one of the largest increases in membership during these uncertain times. As a free service to its members AKMG decided to have an online CME session every quarter to continue to keep the momentum and members engaged with organizational activities. AKMG has always been blessed to have doctors who have excelled in clinical, educational, research, and business sides of Medicine. But Pre COVID, it was not feasible to make full use of this large talent pool. COVID-19 has thrust the world into a sudden and futuristic existence where virtual meetings through various platforms like zoom events have become part of our daily life and AKMG have been able to make the best use of all these technological bonanzas.

We in the CME Education committee had a discussion on the types of CME topics that would be interesting to a large majority of the members and tried focus on broadly interesting topics. Over the past year we had four very well attended online CME meetings. For our first CME on August 14, 2021, the underlying theme we chose was aging. This is a topic of interest to anyone as it underlies the root cause of many chronic conditions. Dr. Sree Nair who is a Professor in Endocrinology and Distinguished investigator at Mayo Clinic with decades of experience in aging gave an overview of aging and how best to slow aging. Dr. Mohammed Najeeb Osman, who is the Chief of Cardiac Rehabilitation and ICU, Cleveland Medical Center spoke on aptly titled “aging rusty pipes” – an excellent review of heart disease with a focus on screening and preventive strategies. This was followed by a talk on the latest updates in the treatment of breast cancer by Dr. Jame Abraham, Chief, Division of Hematology and Oncology and Professor of Medicine at Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH. The event also featured two COVID related topics; Dr. Hari Parameswaran, Chief, Division of Hematology- Oncology and Professor of Medicine at Medical College of Wisconsin who had been one of the pioneers in the use of convalescent plasma in the treatment of COVID spoke about COVID immunity and aging, the most important host factor influencing the clinical outcome of COVID patients. The event’s last topic was something extremely critical in this age of social media where unfortunately misinformation and conspiracy theories appear to spread faster than verified information – on how to use evidence-based medicine during a pandemic. This was given by one of AKMG’s brightest upcoming stars, Dr. Nisha Nigil Haroon, MD who is an Asst. Professor at Northern Ontario School of Medicine and a PSI Foundation Knowledge Translation Fellow. Our next online CME program was on January 23rd Saturday and the focus of that CME was diseases primarily affecting children and young adults. Dr. Anoop Iqbal spoke on childhood obesity, Dr. Sangeetha Kodoth spoke on food allergies, and Dr. Arun Krishan spoke on behavioral challenges faced by adolescents. We had a non-Medicine related but highly appreciated talk during this session, on the architectural history of South Indian Temples by Dr. Cathleen Cummings, Associate Professor of art history at University of Alabama and a renowned expert in ancient Indian architecture. Our 3rd CME was focused and timed around the time of approval of the COVID vaccine and was on January 19, 2021. Dr. Sangeetha Kodoth, an allergy and immunology specialist practicing at Knoxville talked about vaccine allergic reactions and Dr. Shyam Kottilil, Director of Division of Clinical Care and Research at the Institute of Virology at University of Maryland School of Medicine spoke on the topic of Impact of Emergent Mutant Strains on Immunization and effects of lack of immunization of pediatric population. class="separator" style="clear: both;">