The CME Retreat for Women, No Hotel Ballrooms Required

You know the room, on the third floor, with carpet the color of a bruise so it hides the coffee. Death by slide show. And somewhere in the afternoon, a talk on resilience given by someone who has never covered three services short-staffed on a long weekend.

You sat there. You collected the credit, because let's be honest, you need it to keep your license. You came home more or less exactly the person who left.

This is what most CME conferences look like, so when I tell people I run a CME retreat for women physicians and women leaders that doesn’t involve the hotel ballroom experience, their next question is How? The short answer is that we start with exploration, and shove in the learning (don’t worry, we will get to that later 😊 )

This isn’t the newer version of the same trap: the CME you log into from abroad. You fly somewhere beautiful, then spend your mornings glued to a laptop in a hotel room watching pre-recorded sessions, because the platform must register you at the right location. Sure, you get to expense it, but you spend hours indoors that could be spending outside exploring.

Won’t somebody please stop the madness?

I did, and this retreat is none of the above. The difference is the whole point, so let me tell you what it is, why it works, and why it now carries accredited credit at all.

Why most personal development doesn’t follow you home

Here is the hot take missing from the podium: sitting still is a terrible way to initiate change.

You can consume facts sitting down. It feels familiar (like the multiple degrees you acquired to get here.) But real personal development needs honesty, connection, and vulnerability.

Setting boundaries, unlearning a habit of over-functioning, or even just being honest with yourself, doesn’t happen in familiarity where you can be performative.

Besides, who is going to be vulnerable in front of hundreds of strangers, with a live feed running to virtual participants and the whole thing recorded for the people who missed it? Not me, I can tell you that for certain.

Even if you went to one session that created a little momentum for you, the takeaway fades by Thursday because you lacked the genuine connection to explore what surfaced for you. It doesn’t mean it was a bad session, or that you’re undisciplined. It’s because it felt like another day at work instead of a moment of personal discovery.

When your body is engaged, and in exploration-mode rather than survival mode, whatever you discover encodes differently and sticks around. That’s better than the alternative of whatever you learn slumped in Ballroom C on your third burnt carafe of coffee, which evaporates on the trip home.

What changes when the body is working

On this retreat, the coaching does not happen indoors (weather permitting). 

It happens on a switchback above the Ligurian coast because when you are two hundred meters up and winded, there is no energy left to perform.

It happens over a long lunch at a vineyard, at a lookout where the whole coastline drops away beneath you, or on a trail built to be moderately hard on purpose.

It happens with nine women who are not scanning the room over your shoulder for someone more useful. There is no rehearsed answer to 'so what do you do.' Instead, it’s the unguarded conversations in a room full of leaders you have wanted for years.

To keep you in the space you need to be during the retreat, we handle the planning and details:

-       where you stay

-       nearly every meal (to allow for exploration)

-       the trails, the boats, the trains, the sequence of the days.

I handle all of it. I base us in Sestri Levante, so you aren’t backpacking through Europe. I take the logistical load off you, so the only terrain you navigate for six days is internal.

Why exploration now counts as accredited CME

Here is what is genuinely new, and honestly a little wild to me.

This method, the coaching on the trail, the work done on foot instead of in a chair, is now accredited for 10 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits, jointly accredited through Pinnacle Conference LLC across nine credential types including ACPE and ANCC.

Sit with what that means. An accrediting body looked at a curriculum delivered on a cliff trail, with not one ballroom or slide deck in it, and certified it as rigorous continuing medical education.

The credit is the defensible permission slip. But the reason to come is the version of yourself who comes home actually different this time.

 

The part where it becomes your decision

This accredited CME retreat for women runs on the Italian Riviera, through Cinque Terre and Camogli, as well as Portofino and Sestri Levante. The founding cohort of ten women travels September 27 to October 3, 2026, and founding pricing is open until July 31.

If you’re looking for a work-related reason to avoid the reunion you’d rather miss, this is it.

If you’re looking for the chance to explore without worrying about your conference presentation the next day, this is it.

If you’re looking for something different, and you didn’t know what it is, this is it.

If you’re ready, the first step in this journey starts here.