12 Places To Get Free Radiology CME

As a radiologist, you’re already paying a lot of expenses to do business. There’s professional liability insurance, medical society memberships, board certification fees, and other professional dues. And then there’s CME costs. Those with time-limited ABR board certification or continuous certificates issues in 2012 or later are looking to fill 75 AMA Category 1 CME credits every three years, with 70% of them in diagnostic imaging or a related area, and the other 30% in clinically relevant areas. And of course, you may have requirements from other organizations.

That can get expensive. The good news is that free CME is available. It may not be enough to fulfill your entire requirement, but it can chip away at the hours, and provide some good education at the same time. Our 2013 story on 11 free places to get CME still stands, so this more than doubles the educational opportunities.

None of these organizations focus solely on radiology, and most offer a minimal number of radiology courses. But some are related and some fit into the “clinically relevant” area, like ethics or practice management. 

MyCME
MyCME.com offers about a dozen free radiology CME courses for 0.5 to 1 credit each. They use webcasts, slide lecture series, round tables, and patient case studies on topics ranging from breast screening to diagnosing Parkinson’s disease. You can take paid courses with them as well, these are easily distinguishable with the green notation and dollar sign.

More here:http://www.mycme.com/search/radiology/

Doximity
If you are already a Doximity user and not taking advantage of their free CME, you’re missing out. Doximity DocNews provides free Category 1 CME, when you read and submit eligible articles you’re probably already reading (no test required). Certification comes from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Each eligible article earns you 0.5 credits.        

More here:https://www.doximity.com/free_cme

Free CME
Free CME focuses courses in other specialties, but there are a few that might be interesting to radiologists. For example, you might learn about monitoring MS disease progression with MRI or emergency treatment of acute decompensated heart failure, which includes discussion of imaging assessment tools. Search by specialty (radiology is not included), clinical topics, audience, and media format. You can generally earn 0.5 – 2.0 CME credits per course.

More here:http://www.freecme.com/

American College of Physicians
The ACP offers a number of free CME courses, some of which are relevant to radiologists. These include courses in ethics, pediatric case studies (including diagnostic testing and management across settings), and online interactive high value care cases (on eliminating unnecessary health care costs and improving patient outcomes through cost-effective cancer screenings, eliminating health care waste, and estimating the impact of insurance on patient outcomes). These courses each offer one CME credit, and they’re delivered via live meetings, listening or watching recordings, and working online. If you’re an ACP member or subscriber, there’s a greater number of free courses available. Look for the tag line under each category.

More here: https://www.acponline.org/cme-moc/cme/earn-cme

UC Davis
University of California Davis offers around 10 hours of free CME courses through its website. Many of them are designated only for its staff members, but if you look through the section titled “Online Activities for UC Davis” you’ll find some that are open to all health care professionals, and a few are pertinent to radiologists. Generally, they are 1-credit courses. The ones of interest and open to the public include one on safe operation of fluoroscopy equipment and one on digital radiography (image quality and radiation dose).

More here: https://cmecalifornia.com/ucdavis.aspx

Elsevier
Elsevier offers free CME courses for a number of specialties. Unfortunately, the radiology listing is small, with one course currently listed, but it’s still worth 1.5 free CME credits. At this time, they’re offering a course on diagnosing (and treating) glioblastoma multiforme. There may be some in other clinical areas that are relevant, so look through the various listings.

More here: https://www.elseviercme.com/specialties/radiology/

Cleveland Clinic
The Cleveland Clinic has some courses appropriate for radiologists, but nothing focused directly on the specialty. Look for free 0.5 - 1 credit CME webcast courses in treating non-small cell lung cancer using stereotactic body radiotherapy, or on critical limb ischemia.

More here:http://www.clevelandclinicmeded.com/

Pri-Med
Pri-Med offers some free online CME credits, though primarily aimed at PCPs. You may find a few courses appropriate for clinically relevant areas, like practice management, and clinical issues like diagnosing child abuse. Earn 1 credit or more for these courses.

More here: http://www.pri-med.com/

Prime Inc.
Education provider Prime Inc. offers courses for internal medicine and oncology, though radiologists might find some helpful related courses on practice management topics like engaging patients and other stakeholders, delivered by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), and collaborative approaches for treating breast cancer. You’ll usually earn 1 credit per course.

More here: https://primeinc.org/

Physician’s Weekly
With free CME courses from Physician’s Weekly, you’ll be looking for courses in the “related” area – not diagnostic radiology (though they have some for interventional radiologists, like on cardiac catheter labs). Diagnostic radiologists might look for the course on which physicians are prone to malpractice claims, and why. Earn 0.5 credits for courses successfully completed.

More here:http://dev.physiciansweekly.com/cme-corner/

Reach MD
Reach MD has a few CME courses under its radiology tag, though these are for radiation oncologists. Completion earns the physician 0.5 to 0.75 credits. Check back to see if they add new ones, as they do have some educational videos (no CME credit) relating to radiology.

More here: https://reachmd.com/cme/radiology/