Hospitals

Are you the SmartestDoc? Cleveland Clinic partners on daily quiz

Cleveland Clinic is contributing educational materials to a daily quiz that’s designed to test internists […]

Cleveland Clinic is contributing educational materials to a daily quiz that’s designed to test internists and family medicine physicians on their knowledge of medicine and practice-related issues.

The “SmartestDoc” quiz from MDLinx, a website for physicians that’s supported by pharmaceutical advertising, consists of five daily questions. Each month, the physician with the most points from the daily quizzes will be recognized as the “smartest” within his or her specialty.

“Are you the Smartest Doctor?” asks the Clinic’s medical education website, which contains links to the quizzes.  “If you aren’t, you probably want to be because, well, that’s just the way doctors are.”

The quizzes are open to anyone, but only verified physicians will be included on the leaderboard, PharmaExec.com reported.

Doctors who take the quizzes can compare their scores to those of other physicians in the same region or across the country.

“See how smart you are compared with other doctors in the country and have fun learning as you go,” says the Clinic’s site. “If you thought ‘Words With Friends‘ was addictive, give this one a shot.”

A Clinic spokeswoman declined to comment on the quiz.

In addition to internists and family physicians, MDLinx offers daily quizzes aimed at oncologists, pediatricians, diabetes experts and neurologists.

The quizzes do not offer Continuing Medical Education credits, but MDLinx is hoping to add CME credits in the future.

The lack of CME credits could be a problem for MDLinx, according to Dr. Mike Sevilla, a Youngstown, Ohio-area family physician and social media enthusiast.

“The Q&A quiz format is definitely an effective learning style, especially to keep up with new medical literature,” Sevilla said. “However, I believe the initial lack of CME credit will prevent early adoption by physicians.”

Sevilla also identified another potential problem familiar to any company that has a business model built on catching physicians’ eyes. “It is just so difficult to draw physicians’ attention away from their busy work and family schedules — even for five questions,” he said.

MDLinx says it has been recognized by comScore as the second fastest-growing physician website and by Oncology Business Review as the most-visited site for U.S. oncologists, according to a statement from the Washington, D.C.-based company.

MDLinx is a physician portal that offers news, aggregation of medical journal articles and job listings.

[Photo from flickr user edenpictures]

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