Professional Peer Groups

Professional Peer Groups (PPGs) allow for peers to collaborate, share best practices, discuss challenges, and engage in collective problem-solving. Professional Peer Groups are a benefit of CMSS membership and participation is limited to staff and volunteer leaders at member societies.

Please complete the PPG Participation Form to sign up for any of the groups listed below. Questions? Contact Brian Stevenson, CMSS Member Engagement Manager at membership@cmss.org or 301-337-8503. 

CEO Council
Represents CEOs of member societies and is a governing body of CMSS. Closed group.

CFOs: Chief Financial Officers
To foster a collaborative community of CFO’s where members can share best practices, navigate industry challenges, and drive strategic financial leadership for their organizations.

CIOs: Chief Information Officers
This group’s goal is to foster the sharing and exchange of experiences, ideas and the expertise of key individuals from the participating societies to advance the missions of the respective societies. The group tackles issues such as association management systems and implementation, website redesign in achieving goals in optimization and user interfaces, and sharing strategies for future projects.

COOs: Chief Operating Officers
Consists of member COOs and executive directors who share best practices.

Clinical Staff
This new PPG will focus on meeting the needs and interests of the medical and clinical staff at specialty societies. This group could provide an opportunity to explore the role of chief medical officer or other senior clinical staff across societies, engage with peers on clinical or practice-related questions and identify cross-cutting medical or clinical issues where collaborative work among member societies would be most valuable.

Communications & Marketing
This group’s goal is to foster the sharing and exchange of experiences, ideas and the expertise of key individuals from the participating societies to advance the missions of the respective societies. The group addresses policies, best practices and challenges surrounding communications, marketing, public relations and social media within medical specialty societies.

Compliance Officers
This new PPG will be comprised of Chief Compliance Officers and other compliance staff dedicated to advancing the culture of integrity and risk mitigation throughout their organizations.

Corporate Development and Industry Relations
This new PPG will focus on meeting the needs of those involved in corporate development and industry relations. The group will include those involved in fundraising, grant writing and other industry partnerships or sponsorship management who share best practices and navigate changing waters in corporate development.

CPD: Continuing Professional Development 
Provides an opportunity to network, exchange ideas and share concerns on key issues related to CPD and serve as a recognized forum for the CME/CE directors to voice their positions and concerns on issues impacting the delivery and conduct of CME and CE.

CPG: Clinical Practice Guidelines Developers
Formed to address the anticipated challenges from the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Developing Trustworthy Clinical Practice Guidelines: harmonizing CPGs, and assuring common standards in CPG development.

DEI: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
This group’s goal is to share best practices and identify areas for greater collaboration on the topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion for women and underrepresented groups. This group focuses both on issues at the staff level for societies as well as pipeline and advancement concerns for specialty society members.

Digital Health
This new PPG will engage those involved in digital health, including electronic health records (EHRs) and other health IT, to share best practices and identify areas for greater collaboration to optimize the quality, safety, and usability of health IT.

General Counsels
The CMSS General Counsels PPG is a forum for the in-house and retained general counsels of CMSS members to support and educate one another with respect to the unique legal issues of medical specialty societies.

Governance Support
Provides an opportunity to network, exchange ideas and share best practices related to key governance matters such as organizational structure and governance systems; governing documents; implementing the board’s vision and policy; member leadership selection, development, self-assessment, and succession planning; governance resources; committee management; and volunteer engagement.

HR: Human Resources
Provides HR Directors with a forum to share concerns on key HR issues.

Meetings
This new PPG will engage those involved in the meeting planning and logistics arms of medical society conferences and meetings, including in-person, virtual and hybrid meetings.

Membership
Provides an opportunity to network, exchange ideas and share concerns on key issues related to membership recruitment, retention, services, qualifications and issues impacting membership and provides a recognized forum for participants to voice their positions and concerns to organizations impacting membership.

Publishing
Represents managing editors for society-sponsored journals.

Quality (including Registries)
Combined QI/PI and Registries Group. Members of this group network, exchange ideas and provide comments on issues surrounding quality improvement. Members of this group collect and use “big data” to measure, report and demonstrably improve medical practice.

Research
This new PPG will engage senior staff within societies that lead scientific affairs and research activities. The group could consider issues, including but not limited to defining and refining the role of scientific affairs in a specialty society; developing and actualizing a research agenda for a specialty society; conflicts of interest and research funding to societies; support of communication and government affairs departments, including how to leverage members in engaging the broader public in understanding scientific concepts and issues.

Simulation
The CMSS PPG on Simulation Technology in Medical Education was created to explore and recommend strategies to jointly advance the use of simulation in education and training focusing on the needs of practicing physicians and surgeons, residents, and medical students, to address a range of national mandates and opportunities. In addition, the group aims to foster collaboration among the specialty societies to pursue ambitious goals that build on the current expertise and activities of the individual specialty societies.