The Almanac team continues our coverage of the 2026 Alliance Conference with our recap of Wednesday’s session highlights. Read Day 2 and Day 1 in the Almanac.
John Whyte opened the morning keynote, “Why Physicians Must Be Architects of Health Care’s Transformation,” thanking attendees for their work in advancing continuing medical education. When he finished medical school, CME wasn’t emphasized the way it is today; now, clinicians need to keep pace with the rapid evolution of practice. He reminded the audience that AMA’s founding in 1847 was rooted in improving medical practice, and education has always been at the center of that mission.
He described the current moment as one of the most transformational periods in modern medicine, with AI driving much of the change. As agentic AI advances, he expects it will support — not replace — nurses and physicians. But that shift will require CME professionals to lead the way in helping clinicians adapt, make better decisions, and ultimately provide better care. He linked this directly to AMA’s broader efforts around education and health communication. He also noted the unexpected reality that, even in 2026, clinicians are still spending significant time explaining the importance of basic vaccines like MMR, underscoring how essential communication and education are to maintaining public trust.
Incoming Conference Planning Committee Chair Damon Marquis and committee member Scott Hershman guided the discussion into several key topics:
Minimizing Bias and Navigating Online Information
Dr. Whyte emphasized the need to help consumers sort credible health information from the overwhelming amount online. He noted that people often trust professionals with financial decisions but rely on unvetted sources for health questions and cautioned against outsourcing clinical decisions to tools like ChatGPT.
Nutrition in Medical Training
The group discussed nutrition’s role in chronic disease and how AMA and CME professionals might support this area. Dr. Whyte explained that nutrition is still difficult to integrate into medical school curricula because new content competes with limited space and schools prioritize exam-related material. As a result, evidence-based dietary guidance often struggles to gain traction in related material.
Misinformation and Vaccine Communication
Marquis reflected on his CDC work around vaccine information and asked how clinicians can navigate current misinformation. Dr. Whyte highlighted AMA’s Vaccine Integrity Program, which offers clear resources for clinicians and patients. He underscored the importance of neutral language like “vaccine hesitancy” and respectful dialogue, noting that clinicians frequently spend full visits addressing basic vaccine questions.
Health Care Communication Skills
As the conversation shifted to communication competencies, Dr. Whyte discussed the growing need for clinicians to explain the value of professional judgment, especially as some patients see generative AI as an equivalent. He also noted that many clinicians overestimate their communication skills and may default to technical or paternalistic approaches, making communication improvement essential for building trust.
Burnout and Workforce Shortages
Dr. Whyte described burnout as a systems-level issue affecting physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and others. He pointed to workforce shortages, administrative burden, and evolving expectations within the profession as key contributors to the mounting pressure on health care teams.
After this inspiring session, Almanac Editorial Board and team members headed to a full day of sessions. Read on for highlights of the sessions they attended.
Learning on Their Terms: Educational Needs of Young Physicians
Presenters: Vince Loffredo, EdD; Suzanne Ziemnik; Deborah Samuel
The presenters shared results from a multi-society survey of 32 organizations and 528 valid responses, highlighting how physicians under 45 prefer to learn. The data showed a strong preference for online, on-demand education — primarily for convenience and credit — while in-person activities are now valued mainly for networking, mentorship and higher-level case discussion. This shift has accelerated since the pandemic and confirms that hybrid learning is now an expectation.
Attendees discussed strategies for engaging younger physicians, including:
- Expanded use of video and podcasts
- Increased technology integration and multimodal learning
- Cohort-based programs with mentorship and leadership opportunities
- Early career meetups at Annual Conferences
The group also explored the role of “gamification.” Some questioned whether medical societies or hospitals can deliver the kind of user experience young physicians expect from game-based platforms, noting the wide range between simple puzzle-style games and highly immersive environments. Several participants emphasized that user experience often matters more than the format itself — if a website isn’t intuitive or mobile-friendly, physicians quickly disengage.
Survey findings also showed that younger physicians prefer learning on a computer (63%) over phones (31%) or other devices.
Another point of discussion centered on why many learners participate in activities but don’t claim credit. Attendees suggested that accredited content retains inherent value even when credit isn’t needed, and that high-quality learning doesn’t always have to be accredited.
Overall, the presenters noted opportunities for CME professionals to:
- Prioritize cost-effective, convenient learning options;
- Reevaluate accredited offerings in light of learner behavior; and
- Invest in online education, faculty development, and technology.
She Thrives: Claiming Space and Leading Forward in CPD
Panelists: Annette Schwind, MS, CHCP, FACEhp; Ruth Adewuya, MD, Med, CHCP; Maura H. Davis
At this session, women in continuing professional development came together to reflect on their experiences and encourage one another to thrive. Attendees were invited to identify the values — such as empathy, honesty, time, integrity and leadership — that guide their work, and then consider where those values feel aligned in their current roles and where they feel challenged.
The panelists shared stories and practical insights around values-based leadership. Key points included:
- Many people still define success through external markers like titles, program volume, or sales metrics. Values-based leadership shifts the focus inward, toward clarity and alignment around what truly matters;
- Leading from core values can strengthen purpose, trust and influence, and create space for others to show up authentically;
- Panelists shared real examples: using honesty even when it might impact performance expectations; leaning on empathy during difficult feedback conversations; and holding to integrity when asking organizational leaders to live out stated values.
The group also discussed how clearly defined values can help guide decisions — whether advocating for change in one’s current organization or recognizing when it may be time to pursue new opportunities. Since traditional performance reviews rarely measure these elements, some attendees shared how they create personal “KPIs” tied to their values, such as mentoring others or supporting leadership growth among colleagues.
The session ended on a fun note with a round of "She Thrives Jeopardy," featuring questions about women in medicine, pop culture, and leadership styles.
Committee member Sunali Wadhera reflected on the experience and the evening networking event, noting how meaningful it felt to continue conversations beyond the session and to see the group intentionally building community through ongoing connection — including a LinkedIn group for participants.
See the Full Picture! Adding Qualitative Data to Your Outcomes Reports
Panelists: Cecilia Peterson, MSPH, CHCP; Joannie Ham, PhD
At this session, attendees learned about strategies for combining qualitative and quantitative data to improve the storytelling of your outcomes report. This included defining what each type of data is, understanding each type’s strengths and limitations, getting several examples of what quantitative data might look like, seeing examples of reporting that combined the data and how it is advantageous — the list goes on.
A fun part about this session was the small group workshops where attendees wrote learning objectives, made determinations of how to collect data and created their own visualizations of outcomes data. The topic was "Chocolate as Part of a Healthy Diet," supporter "Healthy Chocolate Company, Inc." The session presenters also provided chocolate!
The Great AI Debate: Just Because We Can, Should We?
Panelists: Allison Kickel, CHCP, FACEHP; Núria W. Negrão, PhD; Jasleen K. Chahal, PhD; Sara R. Fagerlie, PhD, CHCP; Natasha McGrath, MBA, Med; Andy Crim, CHCP, FACEHP
This panel brought together Alliance members for a discussion exploring the benefits, drawbacks and open questions surrounding AI in continuing medical education, structured around six guided topics.
Topic 1: Does AI meaningfully reduce workload?
Fagerlie noted that workforce surveys show only modest productivity gains because users often spend significant time correcting or validating AI-generated output, with only 14% noting “net gains” for AI use. She referenced how, in radiology, where AI has been in use for a long time, published studies consistently show that the workload associated with checking and correcting AI output has led to higher levels of burnout.
McGrath described AI’s usefulness for administrative tasks such as rapidly summarizing documents, scanning large amounts of stored material, surfacing information across shared drives, and reviewing missed emails to help determine priorities after being away.
The group agreed that no matter how advanced the tool, responsibility for accuracy and integrity still rests with the human doing the work, and workflows should clearly define where human oversight must occur.
Topic 2: Efficiency Realities
Negrão shared that tasks such as writing needs assessments have become significantly faster for her after developing strong prompting skills and spending time learning how to work effectively with advanced AI tools; however, she also noted she fills her extra time with additional work, leading to burnout.
Others pointed out that many organizations introduce AI without training or process adaptation, which undermines efficiency and leads to inconsistent results.
Crim noted growing concerns about failed AI adoption efforts where tools are pushed onto staff without adequate support.
The group discussed readiness for change, emphasizing that employees need protected time to learn and that AI should be applied only when it genuinely improves workflows or solves a specific problem.
Topic 3: Critical Thinking
The discussion focused on whether AI usage may contribute to skill erosion. Kickel raised questions about research on cognitive decline among clinicians and educators as reliance on AI increases.
Crim questioned the premise of one high-profile end of 2025 paper on cognitive offloading. He expressed doubt about the study’s construction, noting that it spread widely across news outlets despite containing several red flags. The study involved 666 respondents — about half of whom were physicians — suggesting many performed poorly on basic critical thinking questions. But he pointed out that the paper labeled even routine behaviors like using a Google search as “cognitive offloading.”
McGrath emphasized that AI reshapes rather than replaces critical thinking. Users may perform fewer manual steps but take on the role of evaluating and validating AI’s output. Procedural skills may weaken with less practice, but new judgment-based skills develop in their place.
The group closed by noting that concerns about technology weakening human skills are not new — versions of this debate have appeared throughout history.
Topic 4: Bias
The panel noted that AI systems can reproduce and scale existing human and structural biases, and may present biased results in seemingly authoritative ways. Examples were discussed, including algorithms that disadvantaged certain patient groups due to flawed predictors and limitations in clinical datasets that produce less reliable results for specific populations. Participants stressed the need for clear prompting strategies, explicit bias mitigation steps and human expertise in reviewing outputs. Some emphasized that professionals must articulate the decision rules they normally apply implicitly so those checks can be applied consistently in AI-supported workflows.
Topic 5: Environment
Environmental impacts of AI were discussed, including the energy and water demands of data centers, the carbon intensity of computing and concerns about facility placement in regions with limited resources. The panel noted that the environmental cost of AI varies widely by use case, but it is important for the field to acknowledge and advocate for protections around.
Topic 6: Accountability
Participants agreed that responsibility for AI-assisted work remains with the human creator or reviewer, regardless of whether AI was used in the process. They discussed the need for disclosure of AI involvement, clear quality check processes and expectations around reviewing AI-generated content. There was also discussion about emerging legal cases involving AI-supported tools and how oversight standards will likely evolve as ACCME and other bodies update their guidance.
Disclosure: Artificial intelligence was leveraged in this article to refine session takeaways.