Challenger Selects Banner Good Samaritan for Innovative Internal Medicine Course

Memphis, TN 12/26/07 - Memphis-based medical training and education firm, Challenger Corporation, announced today the selection of the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center (BGSMC) Internal Medicine Residency Program in Phoenix as the initiation site for its unique integrated electronic review and reference teaching course—Challenger/Cecil Medicine™. BGSMC is one of 17 institutions nationwide identified by the American College of Graduate Medical Education Residency Review Committee as an original member of their Education Innovations Project for internal medicine. Challenger/Cecil Medicine™ combines the foremost textbook in its area, Cecil Textbook of Medicine, with Med-Challenger IM, the corporation's comprehensive review course in this specialty. The integrated product will enable teaching programs to instruct, evaluate, remediate, and compare performance in residencies and similar training environments. Challenger has previously introduced similar integrated courses in emergency medicine and family medicine.

According to Becca Metzger, Challenger's Vice President, Institutional Relations, "Banner is synonymous with quality, not only in the Southwest, but nationally as well. In collaboration with their faculty and staff, we'll be able to develop a template for evaluation by other residencies in this specialty. The objective with this project is to both provide high-quality review and reference content and to make it possible for teaching programs to validate outcomes and educational gains to their constituencies. Our tools for institutions include content, programmed learning teaching methods, and statistical methods such as effect size comparisons that are not available in other venues."

48 internal medicine residents are currently enrolled in the BGSMC Challenger Program for Residencies program. Training and evaluation are under the direction of Cheryl O'Malley, MD. The decision to install Challenger/Cecil Medicine™ was approved by Dr. O'Malley in conjunction with Alan I. Leibowicz, Chief Academic Officer for Banner Health in Arizona and former chairman of the Department of Medicine. Instruction will begin in Spring 2008.

Challenger owns the world's largest collection of approved electronic CME media, comprising over 3,800 approved hours of credit. Thousands of American physicians and other clinicians rely upon Challenger materials to prepare for specialty board exams, recertification, maintenance of certification, and lifelong learning. Challenger serves the educational and training needs of over 400,000 practicing American primary care and hospital-based physicians and nearly 70,000 physician assistants. Challenger products are approved for physician CME credit through joint sponsorships with eight medical schools and specialty societies. They are also used for institutional training in over seventy major residency and physician assistant training programs across the United States.

Media Contact:

Becca Metzger
Vice President, Institutional Relations
Challenger Corporation
5100 Poplar Avenue
Suite 310
Memphis, Tennessee 38137
Tel: (901) 762-8431
E-mail: becca.metzger@chall.com