From Needs Assessments to Narrative Impact: Positioning Yourself for CME Content Work

[00:00:00] You are listening to write Medicine, the podcast that helps you craft high quality continuing medical education content, and build a writing career that's creative, meaningful, and sustainable. I'm your host, Alex Howson, and today's episode is part of our hot seat coaching series. Real conversations with CME writers who are growing their skills, navigating transitions, and shaping their professional path in real time.

[00:00:30] Zsuzsa: My name is Zsusza Csik. I'm an anesthesiologist and critical care physician by training.

[00:00:36] Transition to Medical Writing

[00:00:36] Zsuzsa: I worked as clinician for 10 years, mainly in Germany and a little while in Austria transitioning into medical writing, happened. The transition started like two or three years ago, and this year was that I found CME and I decided that I would like to go all in. And that's where I am now in the beginning of my CME writing career.

[00:01:01] Exploring CME Writing

[00:01:01] In this hot seat session, I'm joined by Zsuzsa Csik an anesthesiologist and critical care physician who recently transitioned into CME writing, Zsuzsa has a strong start in needs assessments, but like many new CME writers, she's ready to move into content creation where storytelling, design and clinical insight come together to make learning stick.

[00:01:24] In our conversation, we talk about how to signal readiness for content projects, how to identify your clinical sweet spot, and how to build a business strategy that aligns with your long-term goals. Whether you're just starting in CME or looking to expand your portfolio. This episode will help you think strategically about how to position yourself for the next phase of your writing journey.

[00:01:49] Alex: I'm curious, you know, as a physician, what attracted do to CME?

[00:01:53] Zsuzsa: Well, it's like many things I first found medical writing as it is, and then I was [00:02:00] trying to find a version of it that fits me well I obviously knew CME from my clinical practice because I needed to participate in many, when I was writing and learning to write, I figured out that the type of writing I like the most is when I talk to fellow physicians because I can assume a certain amount of background that you can build on. And I can use all the knowledge I have and I still can go into the more scientific part of it, but it's not as regulated or it's not as, many people would probably get offended, but not as dry as regulatory writing. So I can use a bit of creativity in it, and there are so many diverse formats of CME writing. So mainly these were the factors that, draw me into it.

[00:02:51] Alex: It hits all those sweet spots, doesn't it? So we have

[00:02:54] Zsuzsa: Yes.

[00:02:54] Alex: Some questions in our hot seat coaching session. What's your first [00:03:00] question?

[00:03:00] Strategizing Career Moves

[00:03:00] Zsuzsa: As I said, I started this year my career in CME and I I am working mainly in the needs assessment side which I enjoy a lot, but on the long term, I would really like to get into the content side. So what I would really like to talk about, how I could strategically work towards this, how I could position myself and signalize it to clients.

[00:03:24] Alex: And you mentioned a moment ago that one of the things that you enjoy about CME is that there's a lot of different formats available. There's potential for creativity there. Have you seen examples of continuing education projects that really stood out for you.

[00:03:40] Or offer examples of the direction you'd like to go in.

[00:03:43] Creative Formats in CME

[00:03:43] Zsuzsa: Obviously the latest developments like escape rooms, they seem to me like that is really a creative output there. But in the more classical formats, I really like patient cases. Because I think you can weave even much more storytelling [00:04:00] there, like in a needs assessment, for example. And on the creative side, I also would enjoy or enjoy creating slides because I really like the create things that are aesthetically pleasing and still have the storytelling element.

[00:04:15] So to start with, those were things that I would be really interested in.

[00:04:19] Alex: And that's definitely a premium skill because there are still a lot of examples of slide decks that are pretty dry in the sense that they have bullet points and graphs and charts and, you know, not really a clear sense of storytelling. So being able to bring that to education providers you know, definitely positions you in in a strong way.

[00:04:42] Leveraging Needs Assessments

[00:04:42] Alex: so the first thing that I would say is start where you are. Needs assessments are a great entry point. We don't need to stick with needs assessments, you know that I always say we absolutely need to be clear and understand what needs assessments are, what they're all about, their function [00:05:00] in the education planning process.

[00:05:02] But it's not the only thing that we're hired to write as CME writers. You can use them to really learn how gaps are framed and tied to learning design, as well as track the different types of content that is out there from, you know, texts. So what I'm saying there is when you're working on needs assessments, start to pay attention to the education formats that your clients are offering in their overall proposals whether it's text-based, online overviews, slide decks, patient cases, you mentioned gamified activities like escape rooms, webinars, podcasts you know, these sort of things and a whole bunch of things in between. So. I know in WriteCME Pro, we have a, a format data bank, but you can extend more broadly and start looking at what kind of education activities are your clients [00:06:00] involved in.

[00:06:00] Building Client Relationships

[00:06:00] Alex: And when you're working with clients, I think you can also ask to see their downstream deliverables. So when you're working on needs assessments at that startup conversation, ask if they have examples of the type of education activity that's gonna be described in the needs assessment, ask if you can see examples of this type of format that perhaps they've done for other topics or disease areas therapeutic areas and so on just to get a sense of the kinds of content they work on. Then you can get much more granular in how you're describing how you can help them. And the reason I say this is we know there's a lot of education activities that are behind paywalls. And so it's difficult for us to build up that sense of what are all the different education activity formats out there.

[00:06:52] Once we see that we can start to see ourselves in those activities as people who are [00:07:00] contributing to developing them. So I think that's the second thing I would say is, you know, just ask if you can see examples of education activities that your clients have already engaged in. You know, some of those will be, available not behind a paywall. We can often search for those ourselves.

[00:07:17] Utilizing AI and Curiosity

[00:07:20] Alex: And I would say that AI is a great tool here to help you collate examples of education activity formats that are not behind paywalls. Personally, I would use Perplexity for this. That's another way you can start to build up your sense of, what's out there and what could I, what could I work on?

[00:07:37] Balancing Needs Assessments and Content

[00:07:37] Alex: I think the other thing you can do is show your curiosity and your interest in moving to the content side doesn't have to be a complete move. You could keep one foot in needs assessments, the other, in content. But I think for a lot of writers, once they move into that content zone, they want to stay.

[00:07:58] There for one [00:08:00] thing, project rates are often higher, more substantial. The work is you know, has a longer turnaround time and more components to it. And so that you get that sense of completion and delivery and creating that sometimes we don't get with needs assessments because the turnaround time can be pretty tight.

[00:08:22] But when you start to show your curiosity with your current clients, you're just signaling interest in the content side. You can say upfront, I would love to work with you on your next content project. Here are my specialty areas. Or you can more gently start to seed

[00:08:41] their awareness of your interest in the content side by weaving adult learning principles and learning science insights into how you talk about your work. Now, you already do this pretty skillfully on LinkedIn. If you're open to it, we can pull some of your, your posts into the show notes because [00:09:00] I think one of your skills is being able to communicate your knowledge and expertise and interest in learning science in some of the posts that you create for LinkedIn. So you can use all of this work that you're doing on that platform by starting to thread your insights into your conversations with clients.

[00:09:26] And that way you start to frame yourself as a bridge. As you work on needs assessments, you can bring your insights about learning into how the needs assessment might shape the education content. Now, sometimes when we're asked to work on needs assessments, we are also asked to create a mockup of a patient case or create a draft

[00:09:53] education, activity, agenda as well. And I think this is a good opportunity for you to really shine [00:10:00] in terms of identifying what the key teaching messages might be for the particular education activity and maybe even sharing in summary notes with your client when you deliver the final needs assessment here are some things that you're seeing that they might want to consider as they build out the education content itself.

[00:10:24] Now, that probably feels a little bit bold at the moment. So start soft and get, get bolder in, in how you present these things to your clients. And then I think the final thing is.

[00:10:35] Communicating Expertise to Clients

[00:10:35] Alex: When you're having those conversations with your needs assessments clients, finding ways to weave in the transferable skills that you bring as a clinician into CME content development.

[00:10:49] One of the things that we talked about at the start of our conversation here was your interest and I would say facility, your skill in being [00:11:00] able to communicate educational messages to your fellow physicians, and these are the sorts of things that you want to be able to communicate to your client, your analytical rigor, your teaching expertise your learning design interests.

[00:11:14] All of these things make you a strong content partner and also your capacity to work with faculty. And I think this is really important because a lot of the time as writers, yes we are, we are doing a lot of the heavy lifting and development of content, but we're always doing that alongside faculty because they have to sign off on the content in the final analysis, but

[00:11:43] they often don't have time to build that content from scratch and this is where we do the heavy lifting, but in order to do that, we have to be able to ask the right questions talk to faculty as equals and make [00:12:00] sure that the suggestions they are making in the content development process align with the learning objectives and the spirit of the education that's been funded if we're talking about a supporter funded education activity and often writers feel a little bit deferential to faculty because as we know, writers they're not all clinicians. Maybe they're researchers, academics, journalists. And at the end of the day, the faculty are the subject matter experts.

[00:12:30] We have to defer to their expertise, but that doesn't mean that we are deferential in the way we engage with them. So I think you're really well placed to you understand how physicians think you are one, that gives you a really solid foundation for having those kind of conversations with faculty in the content development process. So again, that makes you a strong content partner and something that you want to start communicating with your clients when you're [00:13:00] ready, to do that. So, I have a question for you, which is, which part of the content process excites you most? Or are you kind of interested in most, is it the learning design? Is it working on particular formats? Is it the whole planning process or all of the above.

[00:13:19] Zsuzsa: All of All of the above is a good answer., See the whole thing from beginning to the end. Maybe not the research part, but as soon as you have all the data you want to use as a problem solving thing. And that is what I used to love as a clinician, especially in the ICU, that you have something and you need to find your way around solving that particular issue. And that's how I see that you have data, you have maybe an idea and you have the end points where you want to get, and you need to find those ways that are the most effective take you there and construct. The whole thing towards that goal and in the way you can, and it's very plastic the process that you can [00:14:00] build up the, the story and then include the, learning points the takeaways that the clinicians have to have. So I don't know if it goes with any of those set, but it's, it more feels like that the whole process. I really enjoy like putting together a puzzle or solving a problem, which includes a bit of freedom of creativity. So I just really like the process of it.

[00:14:23] Alex: Yeah, I know. I was just curious. And I think that this is where working on the content side can differ from working on needs assessments because with needs assessments, that's a problem solving activity all on its own, of course, but once you complete and submit the needs assessment, it can disappear into the ether.

[00:14:39] And if you're working on lots of them for a few different clients, then it's very difficult to see whether those needs assessments are actually successful if they get the funding that they're designed to get. Of course, the needs assessment is only one part of the funding proposal process and there are other [00:15:00] different components. My point here is if something doesn't get funded, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad needs assessment because there are plenty of clients who will tell you, yeah, we did this great needs assessment, but the supporter went in another direction.

[00:15:12] But it's difficult to see sometimes you know, was it effective? Did it get funding? All those things. Whereas when you're working on the content side, you do get that nice circular plan, do, study, act. You're, you're in the weeds of, activity design, you are helping the client meet their objectives.

[00:15:32] You get to wrap up the project and see it through to completion, and that's very satisfying. Especially if you've been working in that clinical context where it's pretty clear when you're successful and when you're not. So I completely get that.

[00:15:47] And I love what you said about the takeaway messages, the learning points, because again, as a clinician this is something that you are perhaps a little more [00:16:00] tuned into than those of us who don't come from a clinical background. And definitely something to communicate with your clients.

[00:16:09] So thinking about current needs assessments or current projects or clients, where do you feel something could give you an entry point into content side work? Maybe just a little opening where you could have a conversation with a client and say, you know, I'd love to work on a similar type of project on the content side.

[00:16:33] Zsuzsa: That's a hard question. Well right now I actually probably will get one project on the content side, so I'm super excited about it.

[00:16:40] and now I'm working on a needs assessment where they actually, this is the first time that they actually do ask for the agenda. So I didn't really think about it, but I probably could use this now after hearing your points about it as a conversation opener.

[00:16:56] However, it is still in oncology, which it's not [00:17:00] something that I would exclude just because of that, but I probably could and should use this as a conversation opener if I get the positive feedback on it or, or shall I just go straight saying that, oh, I enjoyed so much and it would be so great to participate the content .

[00:17:17] Alex: I think if you feel ready to start having those conversations about you know, moving to the content side, you should start to seed them. It's not gonna be a one-off conversation. And you're probably gonna have to create some reminders, over a period of of time whether that's a month or three months

[00:17:34] whatever.

[00:17:35] Zsuzsa: I really liked what you said about asking clients to give samples of content because I always only think about asking samples of what I'm doing, which is a needs assessment. So I always ask if they could provide a sample so I see what style, what tone, what structure they want to have. But thought about actually asking beyond that to see what's the end product's going to be. So maybe that could be also like asking [00:18:00] them for a sample and then could use it as a conversation opener.

[00:18:03] Alex: Absolutely. And to be honest, Zsuzsa it wasn't until I started thinking about your question, I thought, yeah, why, why don't I do that? You know, it's okay to ask. I mean, some clients in the past have actually provided examples of activities even when you're working on the needs assessment side, so they'll provide the activity itself, maybe the outcomes as well as the grant that supported that activity. So that's always a nice startup package to get when you're working on needs assessments.

[00:18:33] I mean, just ask to see, to see examples. Why wouldn't they show you?

[00:18:37] Zsuzsa: That's a great idea.

[00:18:39] Alex: So that does take us to a second question.

[00:18:40] So what, what is your second question?

[00:18:42] Exploring Therapeutic Areas

[00:18:42] Zsuzsa: The second question is like I think that CME is very oncology heavy, which I totally understand because oncology is really, evolving in a crazy speed. So I understand the need of that. But since I come from more acute medicine [00:19:00] and I would really enjoy putting that expertise into my work in CME, I would really enjoy opportunities in other therapeutic areas. I think honestly and critical care is maybe too much to us because I, I don't know that, that's so few that I have seen that, activities about these two fields. But like in any adjucent fields like cardiology, pulmonology, anything that surgical or pain for example, which is increasing now as well, many. Stuff isn't new protocols for pain management. And so the question would be, how do I find these clients?

[00:19:41] Alex: Yeah, and actually I think you're starting to answer that question for yourself because you're mentioning these adjacent specialties, things that feed into acute care like cardiology, pulmonology, pain management. I'm also thinking about infectious disease and sepsis the whole kind of gamut of emergency medicine, which of course itself is very broad [00:20:00] and so there's potential for education in emergency medicine, which involves all sorts of things that take you quite far from acute care but still call on your expertise.

[00:20:12] So let me ask, which aspects of acute care do you feel give you the most authority and confidence at the moment?

[00:20:24] Zsuzsa: That's difficult. Emergency medicine in Germany where I worked, you work actually in pre-hospital emergency as an anesthesiologist or critical care physician, which I did for over six years parallel to my clinical jobs. That's a very broad field. other than that, it's really things like chronic diseases in cardiology, pulmonology that often exacerbate into critical illness that I have seen a lot. Also, acute kidney diseases [00:21:00] renal replacement therapy metabolic diseases that could be chronic diseases. Every now and then, they escalate. So you see them very often. And also you see them if they have other reasons, like surgical reasons to be in the ICU, but due to some complications, all these chronic diseases, then exacerbate. It's hard to choose one because it's exactly my field. I think both anesthesia and critical care are fields have that you must have a very broad knowledge, but not necessarily going into the very depth of it. So I have seen a lot of these it would be very easy for me to read myself into the topic and that's something that I would really enjoy. But the therapeutic areas are quite broad.

[00:21:49] Alex: Yeah, so they are broad, but I think that means you don't have to limit yourself.

[00:21:53] Targeting Specific Clients

[00:21:53] Alex: one thing I would recommend is to draw up your skills and interests list. Kind of [00:22:00] map out the broad areas so you know, pulmonology, cardiology anesthesiology, you know, all the ologies. And then start to break each one out in terms of the different disease states and therapeutic areas that you could potentially work on, that already is gonna give you a very broad canvas.

[00:22:23] Zsuzsa: Do you recommend so like concrete topics that I should list out as my therapeutic areas.

[00:22:30] Alex: I think that's valuable for you because if you're having a discovery call or a startup call with a new client, so say they do respiratory medicine things it allows you very quickly to list off in the conversation yeah, I'm very familiar with, you know, X, Y, Z . I see this as an internal facing document or exercise in the first instance to help you get clarity about all the areas that you can potentially work on. And I think you need to do that before [00:23:00] you craft that external facing profiling, whether we're talking about LinkedIn or a website or so on, that's the packaging. But you need to know what's underneath the package so that you can have those conversations quickly and easily with prospective clients. So creating that map of all the things and all the ologies just gives you that clearer handle on what you're able to do. And then from there, you'll also start to get a sense of okay. Let's just say for sake of argument, there are seven ologies at the top of your document. Maybe there's only three of those that you really want to focus on. Yeah, I could write about kidneys, but I really don't want to, so you start to prioritize what you really want to start pursuing because we want to move away from that position of, yeah, here's all the things I could do, and so I'm going to take all the work that comes my way more toward, here are all the things I could [00:24:00] do, here's the work I really want to focus on, and here's the clients I'm really gonna target. So that exercise is part of your strategy for finding the clients that you want to work with.

[00:24:11] And I know at the beginning, often we are working with whoever comes our way. And that's absolutely fine, but sooner or later I think we are gonna want to have more intention and we will develop a clearer sense of, well, I like working with medical specialty societies and the work that they do, so that's what I wanna target.

[00:24:32] Zsuzsa: The reason I brought exactly these questions because I think it's, as you said at the beginning, you take whatever you get because every experience is very valuable and every experience is a learning opportunity. But I kind of think what we talked about yesterday in the group coaching also, that I would like to start to shape this path already from the very beginning before I find myself stuck in something that is not in [00:25:00] alignment with where I would like to be in 3, 4, 5 years from now.

[00:25:05] Alex: Yes. And that's the value of having a strategy and having a vision of where you want to push your business within a particular time period. Because the longer you freelance and run your own business, we're always evolving things change the market, changes our own personal circumstances change. Our business needs to change too in order to keep providing us with what we need from it. But I think that in order to do that, always being very sort of intentional about the direction that you want to go in serves us well in just the way that you've described it in terms of yeah, you're doing a lot of oncology things at the moment, and there are all sorts of things to learn from that, but you're pretty clear that you want to start moving in a different direction and you can.

[00:25:52] These are parallel tracks. You can keep doing oncology stuff, getting the bread and butter, paying the bills, all those things. But [00:26:00] also starting to create this detour, which is gonna become your main path for a little while at least. So that's one of the things that I would suggest is, identifying all the things that you could do and really focusing on, okay, what do I want to focus on? And I would also suggest that acute care isn't just it's not just a therapeutic area or a bundle of disease states. It's a context. It's fast-paced, it's team-based, it's decision heavy.

[00:26:29] Interprofessional Continuing Education

[00:26:29] Alex: So this is all about clinical process and workflow, and that makes you a really great candidate to consider interprofessional continuing education as well, team-based education by the team, for the team. That might take you fully into cardiology. It might take you fully into something else.

[00:26:46] But, we are seeing the growth in interprofessional continuing education, and you are very well placed as a candidate to position yourself as a strong content partner for IPCE. [00:27:00] Because again, this is a differentiator. It's hard for writers to get their head around.

[00:27:04] I would suggest, especially those of us who don't come from a clinical background.

[00:27:08] Zsuzsa: Yes. And I really do appreciate those kind of trainings. I myself participated in quite a few back in the clinical years, and I think those are always the ones where I really actually did learn something where not sit there and listen for two days long, but you are actually doing it and you get that feedback right away in the videos analyzing, and then you see the second round and then you already see how many changes people made just because of that feedback.

[00:27:34] So those were always very amazing trainings.

[00:27:37] Alex: Absolutely. And you can find those providers, the folks who are doing IPC when you look at organizations that have joint accreditation in the A-C-C-M-E provider provider list. And then start to look at their websites, see what kind of education they do. And maybe it's in the areas where you want to start focusing on. And then you start to build your [00:28:00] visibility, build those relationships, start having those conversations.

[00:28:03] Marketing and LinkedIn Strategy

[00:28:04] Alex: And and again, you do that well on LinkedIn, sharing insights, case examples, short posts that, you know, highlight the kind of education challenges that interest you and how education can address the clinical challenges that interest you. I think this is something that probably a lot of writers shy away from, but you're already kinda edging towards this, I think in your marketing, which is identifying a potential clinical challenge and writing about it in such a way on LinkedIn by sharing opportunities for specific educational interventions.

[00:28:48] And I would say that something to think about is, I know you're doing a lot of short posts. Think about a newsletter, think about articles on LinkedIn. Because you can use these LinkedIn [00:29:00] articles as an anchor and then pull out little pieces from them as your short posts.

[00:29:05] Because I'm guessing that at the moment you spend a lot of time and energy on those shorter posts, and the busier you get with paid work, the less time you're gonna have for that. So that could be something to think about in the future as well.

[00:29:18] Zsuzsa: Yes, it takes, but it gets a bit faster now. I think I get

[00:29:21] Alex: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:21] Zsuzsa: routine so it goes a bit faster. But, it is reverse engineering because I take something from the learning, the instructional design part, and then I think, okay, what was the situation that I could link this from my clinical experience. So those posts come from thinking, at the moment I would work on something. Obviously it would be go the other way around. You have the case and then you make the teaching points out of it. But I did think about the newsletter. I just thought that would go on creating this post for another while so I really have a bigger base. And then I would go back and start [00:30:00] to what you actually said to create based on those shorter posts, something that has more substance in it.

[00:30:06] Alex: There's a lot of substance in what you're already sharing. I think the next step for you there potentially comes in, Okay, once you get to a place in your content where you feel like you have a body of work as it were, how can you start using that strategically to connect with CME providers who work in the broad, acute care context who also hire writers to support what they're doing. So, you know, acute care and critical care societies, surgical societies emergency medicine providers, hospital systems, all of these education providers who are working specifically in the areas that interest you, they're the folks to start targeting your content to and building relationships with.

[00:30:59] Zsuzsa: That's a lot [00:31:00] to think about for the future.

[00:31:01] Alex: It is. Yes. And you don't have to do all of that at the moment. It is a step, a step by step process and you're already doing a lot and laying that really clear foundation . I have a couple of questions for you. What would a client notice in your LinkedIn profile at the moment or conversations that you're having with them that would tell them, this is the acute care person?

[00:31:23] Zsuzsa: So what I do with my post is really get a concept from instructional design or what I'm currently learning about learning and teaching and I really try to link it always to some kind of situation in acute care medicine or at least a very clinical situation that many clinicians face so they can relate to it. So I try to form it in a way that whether it's a clinician or a CME person who reads that post, both finds something interesting in it. So it talks to both audiences as I said, the stories usually come from acute medicine. And also [00:32:00] I did actually make my portfolio pieces all around topics that are related or very much com, like I did about neuromuscular blockade. Art aneurysm rupture. ICU recovery. I chose those topics deliberately to signalize what I'm really interested in.

[00:32:21] I think those would be the main points. It's also in my header.

[00:32:24] So there is also written anesthesiologist, critical care physician, although I don't want to be found by that right now, but so that it signalizes the therapeutic areas that I'm more, have an experience.

[00:32:37] Alex: I think that's great. And there's just a couple of things there. One is I love that you are intentionally writing for two audiences and you're clear about the audiences that you're trying to reach. That's super important. And the second thing is in that process of identifying yourself and [00:33:00] positioning yourself as the acute care person don't lose sight of all these things that are underneath the umbrella of acute care, because a lot of people will read acute care and think, oh, oh, she doesn't do renal then, but of course you do renal. You know, so that's, that's the thing I meaning by, okay, when you have that complete sense of all the areas that you can work in and what you really want to focus on, you can then break that down a little bit and use that information to tailor your LinkedIn profile a little bit more and really parse that out in the about section as well.

[00:33:39] Zsuzsa: Funny that you bring up this oh, acute care. So she doesn't do this or that? I just got the question from a client lately that, oh, I saw you are an anesthesiologist. So are there any other topics that I think people that don't work in this field, they don't know that actually as an anesthesiologist, you really need to know the main diseases [00:34:00] all the me, all the medic people are taking because. Every cardio disease, every pulmonary disease, every renal, hepatic, whatever disease is going to affect anesthesia massively. So I think that's the part that people don't really realize. They think, oh, anesthesia. So she puts people to sleep. But it's far deeper than that. And maybe that's really a part of my communication that I could improve.

[00:34:24] Alex: That is absolutely something to communicate to people that, yeah. You see anesthesiologist, I see 101 different diseases. I see a whole organ system here that you're responsible for.

[00:34:38] Zsuzsa: Worked with surgery from, I don't know, ral, surgery, neurosurgery, urology, whatever. Which you also need to have, obviously not a deep understanding as a surgeon himself, but for themselves. But you also have to have a knowledge on what's happening actually during the operation. So yes, that's a very good point and takeaway to communicate.

[00:34:58] Alex: Yes. And also it takes you [00:35:00] right back to that team-based care because who's calling the shots in surgery? It's not the surgeon, it's the anesthesiologist. That's too loud.

[00:35:07] Zsuzsa: that too loud.

[00:35:08] Alex: Oh, it depends on your audience, right? But I, again, I think that's something that you can really parse out and frame in terms of clinical decision making and the surgical process. I'm sure there are lots of things that you can really get your teeth into there. Just to kind of wrap up that point is that your facility to pinpoint those things is something that potential clients can really benefit from because it helps you to see gaps. It helps you to see clinical practice and performance gaps in a way that is really challenging for a lot of people because you get the nitty gritty, you get the clinical context, you get all of the things that can make it really challenging for people to do what they should be or want to be doing in a given scenario. So that's a premium skill.

[00:35:59] Final Thoughts and Next Steps

[00:35:59] Alex: What [00:36:00] feels like the next natural sort of experiment or step for you before we wrap up?

[00:36:04] Zsuzsa: well, I'm definitely working on my script, would be also, and it is also in a very clinical ICU topic. And when I'm ready with that, that is something that I also want to put in my portfolio, put them to link it in as a potential marketing, strategy yes. And as I said, I, I'm definitely going to use this opportunity now that I'm asked to develop agenda for the needs assessment educational agenda, and. Yes, I will try to start these conversations with clients, I think first in a very soft way about, expressing my interest on what kind of content they're creating. I think those would be my next steps.

[00:36:55] Every coaching conversation reveals something we can all learn [00:37:00] from. And Zsuzsa's story is a great reminder that strategy and curiosity are powerful tools for growth. Whether you're shifting from needs assessments to content writing, refining your niche or exploring new clinical areas, take a moment to reflect.

[00:37:16] What's one step you can take this week to move closer to the kind of CME projects you really want to work on? And if you'd like to experience a coaching conversation like this one, apply to be in a future Write Medicine hot seat, or join us inside WriteCME Pro where we dive deep into these topics every month with a community of CME writers who are building purposeful, sustainable businesses.

[00:37:41] You'll find links in the show notes to apply or learn more.

[00:37:46] Thanks for listening and remember, every project you take on is another step toward mastering the craft of CME writing.