In 2003, Dr Neil Love, co-chair of the Miami Breast Cancer Conference, was enlisted to revamp the meeting’s “medical oncology track” in order to provide a more interesting and relevant format for conference attendees. To accomplish this goal, Dr Love and the Breast Cancer Update team adopted the Meet The Professors format. The rationale behind this decision was the observation that community-based medical oncologists embraced the opportunity to receive in-depth feedback from national and international breast cancer researchers regarding highly complex case presentations from their practices. Utilizing the renowned faculty members presenting at the conference, Dr Love opened the floor to attending physicians and asked them to present actual cases they had recently managed. The lively debate and interesting discussion that occurred during these sessions was truly remarkable and represented medical education in its purest form.

The success of this format (evaluations from attendees rated these sessions among the highest for the entire conference) led to the hypothesis that a wide physician audience would benefit from access to the dynamic dialogue produced by these events. To test the concept, 11 community oncologists and four research panelists gathered in Dallas, Texas, for a pilot Meet the Professors recording session. The proceedings from that event were recorded and subsequently edited into a final audio and print program. Distributed to 11,000 medical oncologists and hematologists in the United States, the case-based program was so successful that a dedicated Meet The Professors series was launched in 2004.