I had recently graduated from family medicine and I was hiding out working in an ER and ICU Hospitalist job. In my 'free time', I would head up north and work in remote locations. I was often the only doctor on when trauma patients would roll in so it pushed my skills up a notch. Trauma happens a lot up north. This is partly because transport modalities (ATVs and Skidoos) are not that safe.
On one of the weeks I was supposed to be off I got snowed in. To make use of my time I worked the free clinic telephone trying to find an Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course in Winnipeg. This was in the late 90s. There were websites but they were super beat. The effort of finding prized courses like ATLS was still largely done by working the phone. After 60 minutes I didn't have much luck cold calling around to CPD departments. I considered giving up and likely would have had I not been so bored. I started to ponder... for every person who successfully figured out how to sign up for an ATLS course in Manitoba how many, like me, would give up?
I persisted with working the phone. I got through to a promising lead in an ICU but they were in the middle of assisting with a code. I got off the phone. 20 minutes later I reached an SICU where a trauma surgeon was working. They were in the middle of something crazy serious themselves. I could hear the buzzing and pinging. I eventually tracked down the first doctor who was able to vet my suitability to take the course. All in it was 2-3 hours.
This experience left an indelible impression on me.
There had to have an opportunity cost to this that affects patients... It's just that the math was hard to do.
No one pays the process of finding CPD as much consideration as the CPD offering itself but it is the process that gets learners through the door.
So I embarked on a hobby that turned into a career of cataloguing and organizing CME opportunities as my contribution. I'm not good at research so this made more sense. As I found more and more unmet needs this led to communities of practice support work. I work primarily on projects that help to connect evidence-based practitioners with the resources they need to do their jobs properly.
Naturally, since then, things have a lot gotten better. ATLS particularly has a world-class portal now. Still, there are unmet needs. Things change so fast. Access to pertinent information remains a challenging knowledge synthesis and knowledge translation puzzle. There is an explosion of options and the need to figure out how a given situation is best addressed rapidly is as hard in some ways. This is particularly true when you fold in the confusion brought by abundance.
Still, I am glad I no longer have to interrupt codes in ICUs to figure out where the next ATLS course is.
That one got fixed.