Building Your Personal "CME Library": How to Organize and Revisit What You've Learned
Clinicians are often overburdened, so it's easy to complete a CME activity, claim the credit and immediately move on to the next task. While it may satisfy CME requirements, this approach limits the long-term value you gain from your learning experiences.
With a more strategic approach to knowledge management, you can turn CME activities into long-term professional assets. See how systematically capturing, organizing and applying your clinical knowledge can improve retention and clinical outcomes.
Digital Tools for Knowledge Capture
Digital tools store learning in easily accessible formats, which allows you to create a personal CME library. Note-taking platforms, such as Notion, Evernote and OneNote, make it possible to collect memos, images, links and documents in one searchable environment. This centralized storage functions as a second brain, enabling convenient knowledge retrieval during future learning or review. Several categories of digital tools can support this process.
Reference management tools make this process more precise by organizing primary sources from CME content. Applications such as Zotero and Mendeley allow you to store PDF files of guidelines and peer-reviewed articles with searchable metadata.
Screen clipping tools built into most operating systems can also be useful for CME webinars or conference recordings. If these activities don't provide physical or digital copies of their slides, charts or other references used during presentations, you can screen clip and organize them into your knowledge management system.
The "Tagging" System
Implementing a tagging system within a CME library creates an efficient retrieval system. Use these tags to define different kinds of information and organize your CME content. In addition to making it easier to find relevant content, a tagging system also lets you make semantic connections between clinical topics. Here are a few ways you can implement tagging in your digital CME library:
- Clinical topic tags: Group content by clinical categories, such as #Cardiology or #Diabetes, to locate materials by topic rather than activity.
- Utility tags: #Reference, #ToRead or #ClinicalPearl distinguish between bite-sized content or reference material from content not yet studied or requiring more in-depth review.
- Quick reference folders: Dedicated folders or saved views using tags or defined elements streamline lookups in your CME library for information you reference frequently.
Spaced Repetition and Review
Regular review of CME content enhances knowledge retention and recall. Spacing out review over specific intervals following CME learning reinforces knowledge, allowing you to study consistently without overburdening your schedule. For example, reviewing notes one week later reinforces key concepts, while a secondary review after a month helps to cement the details of these concepts. Some clinicians convert CME notes into flashcards using Anki and other tools, which works well for diagnostic criteria, medication adjustments and guideline updates.
Scheduling a monthly CME review hour establishes a protected time in which you can dedicate your focus to revisiting CME content, which enables consistent study over time. During these review blocks, you can reread summaries and refresh important concepts that inform everyday clinical decisions.
Integrating into Practice
Integrating a personal CME library into daily practice enables you to access relevant information during clinical decision-making. Creating personalized dot phrases for your documentation, for instance, makes your notes more consistent and easy to extract or reference data from. Likewise, building and implementing EMR templates based on CME learning minimizes manual data entry, transcription errors and administrative burden, allowing more time for patient care.
A CME library also lets clinicians share summaries of their learning with colleagues. Explaining CME concepts to others prompts you to retrieve and break down the information and present it in an accessible manner, which clarifies and improves your comprehension of these concepts while also creating helpful learning references for colleagues.
Updating personal clinical cheat sheets further reinforces learning. Revisiting guidelines, normal lab values and dosages based on CME learning requires active engagement with the material and applies it preemptively to your clinical practice.
Start Building Your CME Library
Rather than treating CME as a checkbox, get more value from CME activities by organizing them into your personal clinical library. With a strategic approach to storing, tagging and reviewing CME content, you can effectively integrate it into your clinical practice. Explore Oakstone CME products to start building your own library and become a better clinician.
Clinicians are often overburdened, so it's easy to complete a CME activity, claim the credit and immediately move on to the next task. While it may satisfy CME requirements, this approach limits the long-term value you gain from your learning experiences.
With a more strategic approach to knowledge management, you can turn CME activities into long-term professional assets. See how systematically capturing, organizing and applying your clinical knowledge can improve retention and clinical outcomes.
Digital Tools for Knowledge Capture
Digital tools store learning in easily accessible formats, which allows you to create a personal CME library. Note-taking platforms, such as Notion, Evernote and OneNote, make it possible to collect memos, images, links and documents in one searchable environment. This centralized storage functions as a second brain, enabling convenient knowledge retrieval during future learning or review. Several categories of digital tools can support this process.
Reference management tools make this process more precise by organizing primary sources from CME content. Applications such as Zotero and Mendeley allow you to store PDF files of guidelines and peer-reviewed articles with searchable metadata.
Screen clipping tools built into most operating systems can also be useful for CME webinars or conference recordings. If these activities don't provide physical or digital copies of their slides, charts or other references used during presentations, you can screen clip and organize them into your knowledge management system.
The "Tagging" System
Implementing a tagging system within a CME library creates an efficient retrieval system. Use these tags to define different kinds of information and organize your CME content. In addition to making it easier to find relevant content, a tagging system also lets you make semantic connections between clinical topics. Here are a few ways you can implement tagging in your digital CME library:
- Clinical topic tags: Group content by clinical categories, such as #Cardiology or #Diabetes, to locate materials by topic rather than activity.
- Utility tags: #Reference, #ToRead or #ClinicalPearl distinguish between bite-sized content or reference material from content not yet studied >or requiring more in-depth review.
- Quick reference folders: Dedicated folders or saved views using tags or defined elements streamline lookups in your CME library for information you reference frequently.
Spaced Repetition and Review
Regular review of CME content enhances knowledge retention and recall. Spacing out review over specific intervals following CME learning reinforces knowledge, allowing you to study consistently without overburdening your schedule. For example, reviewing notes one week later reinforces key concepts, while a secondary review after a month helps to cement the details of these concepts. Some clinicians convert CME notes into flashcards using Anki and other tools, which works well for diagnostic criteria, medication adjustments and guideline updates.
Scheduling a monthly CME review hour establishes a protected time in which you can dedicate your focus to revisiting CME content, which enables consistent study over time. During these review blocks, you can reread summaries and refresh important concepts that inform everyday clinical decisions.
Integrating into Practice
Integrating a personal CME library into daily practice enables you to access relevant information during clinical decision-making. Creating personalized dot phrases for your documentation, for instance, makes your notes more consistent and easy to extract or reference data from. Likewise, building and implementing EMR templates based on CME learning minimizes manual data entry, transcription errors and administrative burden, allowing more time for patient care.
A CME library also lets clinicians share summaries of their learning with colleagues. Explaining CME concepts to others prompts you to retrieve and break down the information and present it in an accessible manner, which clarifies and improves your comprehension of these concepts while also creating helpful learning references for colleagues.
Updating personal clinical cheat sheets further reinforces learning. Revisiting guidelines, normal lab values and dosages based on CME learning requires active engagement with the material and applies it preemptively to your clinical practice.
Start Building Your CME Library
Rather than treating CME as a checkbox, get more value from CME activities by organizing them into your personal clinical library. With a strategic approach to storing, tagging and reviewing CME content, you can effectively integrate it into your clinical practice. Explore Oakstone CME products to start building your own library and become a better clinician.