Staff Spotlight

Ten years ago, Mary Marcarelli was assigned to work in the Yale Continuing Medical Education (CME) office in Sterling Hall of Medicine. First she spruced up the office with fresh paint and better furniture. Then she went to work building upon the office’s staff of two, meeting with physicians and leading the department into the electronic age.

Today, Yale CME is an impressive example of efficiency. In fiscal 2010, Marcarelli and her team of five provided continuing education for 10,243 health care professionals. Their work included:

• 72 Regularly Scheduled Series, including grand rounds, tumor boards, journal clubs, case conferences and M&Ms
• 33 live events, increasing to 41 in fiscal 2011
• 84 online CME courses
• 500 grant application submissions
• Large events such as Gerard Sanacora MD’s Psychopharmacology Master Class, which drew more than 350 people to the Omni Hotel

That’s the short list. “We are a clean, tight operation,” Marcarelli said. “We are very tight with budgets, very compliant with all of the regulations. One of my goals was to always present the Yale School of Medicine in its very best light.”

A New Haven native from a large Italian family—she’s working toward dual American-Italian citizenship—Marcarelli was previously administrative manager for the Connecticut chief state’s attorney, and later ran chambers for a federal judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New Haven and New York City who was considered for the U.S. Supreme Court.

She left law to take care of a family member, and was later asked as a favor to work in the finance office at Yale. She had moved on to development, medical publications and alumni affairs when David Kessler, MD, dean of the Medical School at that time, asked her for a review of the CME, which was an office in need of leadership. “I had to educate myself very quickly, and then write a 300-page self-study to prepare for an audit. There were times when I said, ‘This can’t be done.’ But then it all began to click,” Marcarelli said.

Marcarelli went on to turn CME into an outstanding program. “Mary breathed new life into CME activity at Yale School of Medicine,” said Lawrence Cohen, MD, chair of the Yale CME Advisory Board for the last 10 years. “This feat was especially remarkable given the institution of much stricter guidelines by the Accreditation Council for CME. She put together a most effective team, making Yale CME a leader nationwide.”

The CME staff includes Deborah Dunn, conference coordinator and financial assistant; Dena Farber, conference coordinator, marketing and web manager; Linda Thompson, regularly scheduled series and joint sponsorship manager; and Farrah Nettleton, conference coordinator and online learning manager. All are knowledgeable about CME compliance. “I have a fabulous team,” Marcarelli said. “And we do work as a team. When we call all hands on deck, we’re all there.”

Dunn has been with CME for six years as a conference planner, a job that includes everything from reviewing course materials to checking for conflict of interest with pharmaceutical companies that fund courses, designing posters, and ordering food and booking accommodations for people who sometimes come from as far away as China.

“You have to multi-task with this kind of work. You really have to be and you have to like what you do,” said Dunn. “Mary is just an incredible person to work with in an office like this. She developed processes and procedures that work.”

Yale Medical Group physicians must accumulate the required 50 CME credits every two years for state licensure—Yale CME awarded 10,000 CME credits to physicians on and off campus last year, including community doctors outside of YMG’s medical community. Dena Farber, also the CME marketing coordinator, sends 200,000 brochures a year to physicians, nurses and allied health professionals, mostly in Connecticut, Rhode Island, southwestern Massachusetts and Westchester County, although they’ve hosted events in such places as Nevada and Puerto Rico.

James C. Tsai, MD, MBA, chair of ophthalmology, was impressed by the Yale CME’s support for his department’s conferences of up to 300 people in New York City, where he wanted to draw upon his connections in the city. “Our Yale Eye Center practice needed to attract more attention from a larger group of physicians throughout the metropolitan area. These conferences opened up new referral patterns for our specialists and brought the Eye Center greater recognition,” Dr. Tsai said.

Two CME projects were cited as “best practices” by the Association of American Medical Colleges and Society for Academic CME. They were Therapeutic ERCP/EUS Workshops, a live demonstration of diagnostic and therapeutic ERCP and EUS cases by Priya Jamidar, MD, Harry Aslanian, MD, and Uzma Siddiqui, MD; and Yale’s Diabetes Newsletter, which summarizes the latest data presented during four leading international scientific meetings, by Robert S. Sherwin, MD, and Silvio E. Inzucchi, MD.

In the near future, Marcarelli plans to revamp CME’s offices as well as their website, and add at least 15 to 20 live conferences a year and new staff to support them. In addition, CME will inaugurate “Yale Medical Reports,” which will highlight lectures from live conferences as part of its online learning. “We don’t need to start our own production company, but we do want to have every department and section of the school represented in our curriculum,” she said.