10 Steps to Forming a CCMEP Study Group

A study group in the dining hall at Harvard University's Currier House.

While it’s possible to purchase a course to prepare for the certified continuing medical education professional (CCMEP) exam, it can also be a lot of fun to form your own study group. As a bonus, you’ll have a chance to make friends while you practice adult learning principles.

Here’s an easy step-by-step guide to help you get started:

1)    Announce to your local colleagues that you are forming a study group for the CCMEP exam. Specify a start date, and begin recruiting members. Social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter are ideal for this purpose.

2)    Set a deadline for people to contact you, and make sure they know space is limited. Stop recruiting when you have reached 6 or 8 members. Too many people will make your group hard to manage; too few and your group won’t be able to function without full attendance.

3)    Arrange the time and place for your first meeting. A casual restaurant that is centrally located would be ideal. Try to pick a night the restaurant isn’t too busy – your group might tie up a large table for several hours.

4)    Before the first meeting, read up on principles of adult learning from the content outline published by the National Commission for Certification of CME Professionals (NC-CME). Prepare a brief lesson to share what you’ve learned.

5)    Distribute copies of an agenda along with the content outline. Allow plenty of time at this first meeting for people to introduce themselves and explain why they want to take the exam. To set a light-hearted tone, include some ice breaker activities. One idea that works well is a brief “show and tell” session, where everyone brings an object related to an adult learning challenge they have successfully mastered. Allowing each person to boast a little will build self-confidence.

6)    Bring along a partially filled out sheet of paper titled “Our Learning Charter.” (Malcolm Knowles, an important adult learning theorist, would definitely have approved of this.) At your first meeting, write down the group’s answers to the following questions: a) what is our name? b) what is our chief learning goal? c) when do we hope to learn it? d) what resources will we use?  e) who will teach us? f) how will we know when we reach our goal?  g) how will we celebrate success? Invite everyone present to sign the charter, and remember to record the date.

7)    Sketch out a calendar for future monthly meetings. These can be in person, over the phone, or via webinar. Divide the content outline up into chunks, and assign one chunk per meeting.  Ask for volunteers to teach the various chunks to the rest of the group.

8)    Assign homework. For one person, the homework will be to prepare next month’s lesson. For everyone else, the homework will be to dream up 10 to 20 multiple choice questions that might appear on the exam.

9)    Ask for a volunteer to briefly review a helpful study resource at each meeting. This might be a book, journal, or Web site. The NC-CME has produced a peer-reviewed list of professional books and journals that can be downloaded for free – it’s a great place to start.

10) For your group’s last meeting, pool all of your imaginary test questions into a single, humongous list. Distribute the mock test to members for review before they take the exam. You may need a 3-ring binder for all the questions and other helpful review material you collect. When you take the real test, you’ll be pleasantly surprised how much you have learned. Champagne, hors d’oeuvres, and dinner at a nice restaurant can be a great way to celebrate when a member earns the CCMEP credential.