Internal medicine CME topics for 2026: what to focus on (and what can wait)

Editorial source check: October 8, 2026. This study-planning overview is not a clinical guideline or independent clinical review.

Internal medicine has always been the specialty of "a little bit of everything." Several major updates arrived in 2025 and 2026. New blood pressure and cholesterol guidelines were joined by the first guideline on cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome. Treatment updates include two obesity pills and a GLP-1 approval for fatty liver disease. The COPD report was reworked, and the federal vaccine advisory process has spent much of 2026 in court.

For your 2026 study plan, start with these topics:

Below: what changed, where to read it, a sample three-day study plan, and what can wait until 2027.

Build the topic list around your practice, then check the separate state license requirements and specialty board requirements, including ABIM's MOC rules.

What are the most important internal medicine CME topics in 2026?

Why should blood pressure and lipids top your list?

Because one calculator now sits under both. Cardiovascular disease is 15% of the target content on ABIM's January 2026 Internal Medicine blueprint, the largest single category, and the two big prevention guidelines both lean on the AHA's PREVENT equations.

The 2025 high blood pressure guideline

The 2025 AHA/ACC multisociety guideline replaces the 2017 version. Per the ACC's summary, worth studying:

• PREVENT replaces the pooled cohort equations for estimating risk and guiding treatment decisions.
• Urine albumin-creatinine ratio moves from optional to routine in the initial evaluation.
• Primary aldosteronism screening is recommended in resistant hypertension, with or without low potassium.
• Sections on renal denervation, potassium-based salt substitutes, and blood pressure and cognitive health.

The 2026 dyslipidemia guideline

The ACC/AHA dyslipidemia guideline (March 13, 2026) retires the 2018 cholesterol guideline. The headline changes: measure Lp(a) at least once in adulthood, estimate risk with PREVENT-ASCVD, and use LDL-C goals again, to the relief of everyone who likes a number to aim for. It also gives coronary artery calcium scoring a more specific, selective role.

Study tip: Run three hypothetical patient profiles through PREVENT and the old pooled cohort equations. PREVENT generally estimates lower risk, and watching the numbers move teaches more than the risk tables do.

How do diabetes, obesity and CKM fit together now?

For years these lived in separate chapters. In 2026 the guidelines started talking to each other.

ADA Standards of Care in Diabetes—2026

The summary of revisions (Diabetes Care, Dec. 8, 2025) is the most efficient 20 minutes you'll spend. Changes internists will notice:

• Technology: CGM at diabetes onset for people using insulin, and C-peptide requirements removed as a barrier to pumps and automated insulin delivery.
• Liver and heart: MASLD/MASH and symptomatic HFpEF now shape GLP-1 RA and dual GIP/GLP-1 RA selection.
• Kidney: new guidance on starting an SGLT2 inhibitor and a nonsteroidal MRA together in selected patients, with monitoring.
• New territory: hyperglycemia from cancer therapies and posttransplant diabetes.

The first CKM syndrome guideline

On June 9, 2026, the AHA, ACC, American Diabetes Association and American Society of Nephrology published the first CKM syndrome guideline. It recommends CKM staging, PREVENT for 10- and 30-year risk, and screening for social drivers of health, with a treatment framework spanning lifestyle, GLP-1–based therapies, SGLT2 inhibitors and, when appropriate, metabolic surgery (ACC press release). If you read one new document this year as an internist, make it this one.

Obesity pharmacotherapy: a crowded shelf

• Oral options: the FDA approved oral semaglutide for weight management (the Wegovy pill) on Dec. 22, 2025 (Novo Nordisk), and orforglipron (Foundayo), a nonpeptide oral GLP-1 RA, on April 1, 2026 (FDA).
• Guidance: ACP's living clinical guideline on pharmacologic treatment of overweight and obesity (April 2026) is written for the outpatient internist.
• Coverage: CMS's Medicare GLP-1 Bridge began July 1, 2026, and runs through Dec. 31, 2027, giving eligible Part D enrollees access to certain GLP-1 drugs for weight management with a fixed copay. Expect questions in clinic.

What changed in kidney and liver care?

KDIGO

The KDIGO 2026 Anemia in CKD guideline (Kidney International, Jan. 2, 2026) replaces the 2012 version, covering iron, ESAs, HIF-PH inhibitors and transfusion. The 2024 KDIGO CKD guideline remains the core reference for staging, risk and progression.

MASLD and MASH

On Aug. 15, 2025, the FDA granted accelerated approval to semaglutide for noncirrhotic MASH with moderate to advanced fibrosis, based on part 1 of the ESSENCE trial (FDA). Together with resmetirom's 2024 approval, internists now have two approved drug options to understand, and a reason to get comfortable with noninvasive fibrosis assessment. Accelerated approval means confirmatory outcome data are still to come, which is a good teaching point in itself.

What's new for COPD and asthma?

Pulmonary disease is 8% of the ABIM Internal Medicine blueprint, and both global strategy documents moved this cycle.

• GOLD 2026 (key changes): the ABE categories were adjusted so that even one moderate exacerbation should prompt consideration of treatment escalation, with a goal of low disease activity. There is a new disease-activity section, a new figure on biologics, rewritten chapters on exacerbations and multimorbidity, updated case-finding figures and updated RSV and influenza vaccination advice.
• GINA 2026 (report, May 2026): new flowcharts for managing acute asthma in primary care and acute care settings, by age group, plus a refreshed diagnosis section. GINA continues to treat a single severe exacerbation as a signal to review therapy.

What's happening with prevention and vaccines?

This is the year to read primary sources, because the usual federal pipelines have been unusually quiet or unusually contested.

USPSTF

The Task Force's 2025 final statements included osteoporosis screening: screening women 65 and older and younger postmenopausal women at increased risk, with evidence for men still insufficient. The December 2024 cervical cancer screening update is still labeled draft. Keep draft recommendations separate from current final guidance.

Adult immunizations and ACIP

The short, neutral version, per the Congressional Research Service:

• June 2025: the HHS secretary replaced all 17 ACIP members. The reconstituted committee's 2025 votes included moving COVID-19 vaccination to shared clinical decision-making and changing hepatitis B birth-dose guidance.
• March 16, 2026: in AAP v. Kennedy, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts stayed most new ACIP appointments and the committee's votes, along with related schedule changes (ACP statement; ACP is a plaintiff).
• Appeal: the First Circuit's Aug. 26 scheduling notice set oral argument for Oct. 6, 2026. A scheduled hearing is not a ruling; check current court orders and CDC recommendations before relying on this timeline.

What to read: CDC's current adult schedule (check its date), the vaccination figure in GOLD 2026, and ACP's rapid practice points on RSV vaccines and 2025–2026 COVID-19 vaccines. Then check again next month.

Antimicrobial stewardship

IDSA's first guideline on complicated UTI (July 17, 2025) redefines complicated UTI around infection beyond the bladder and walks through empiric choice, IV-to-oral switch and duration. Infectious disease is 10% of the blueprint, and UTI management is a practical topic to include.

How does this connect to ABIM's LKA?

If you maintain certification through ABIM's Longitudinal Knowledge Assessment, the overlap is real. Per ABIM, the LKA offers 120 questions a year over a five-year cycle (you must open at least 500 of 600), allows five minutes per question plus a 30-minute annual time bank, and lets you use any resource you'd use in practice except another person. ABIM's blueprint says the assessment emphasizes common conditions, "particularly in areas where practice has changed." Reading the documents above is sensible preparation in general. No reading list, including this one, predicts specific questions.

What can wait until 2027?

Skim these now. Read them deeply when they land. Per the organizations' own pages:

• ACC/AHA (Clinical Policy in Progress, updated June 15, 2026): a primary prevention guideline update, a nonstatin therapy decision pathway and concise guidance on antithrombotics for patients with multiple indications (all Q4 2026); heart failure guideline update (2027).
• KDIGO: the 2026 Diabetes and CKD guideline finished public review April 13, 2026, with no final date announced. A focused CKD update on SGLT2 inhibitors, GLP-1 RAs and nonsteroidal MRAs in CKD without diabetes has no target date.
• Annual cycles: the ADA Standards and GOLD report usually refresh each winter (ADA in December, GOLD in November).
• USPSTF and ACIP: check current guidance and calendars rather than assuming no meetings are scheduled. The CDC calendar lists Oct. 21–23, 2026 for ACIP and identifies two earlier 2026 meetings as cancelled because of litigation.

Targets slip. Recheck before you build a study day around a document that doesn't exist yet.

How do you turn a reading list into real learning?

1. Pick three themes, not ten. Cardiometabolic, kidney/liver and lungs make a solid year.
2. Start with a clinical question, such as "Which of my patients with diabetes and CKD would the new ADA guidance change?"
3. Read the summary of revisions first, then the full text.
4. Protect whole mornings, not stray minutes between inbox messages.
5. Write it down: what you read, when, and what you might do differently.

Where does Shift CME fit in?

If the hard part is protecting the time, Shift CME helps you plan a self-directed conference at a destination you choose from our list. Choose your dates, and every day of them, weekends included, becomes a 9:00 AM–2:00 PM local study day, built from journal modules chosen for your specialty. An internist might plan days around hypertension, diabetes and obesity, and CKM. Time after the study day ends at 2:00 PM is yours.

When you confirm, you get a confirmation PDF dated that day that lists your program, venue and study days. A simple check-in from your phone confirms you're at your destination. After your last study day, we email your conference records and keep them together in Records. Knowledge checks and evaluations are optional unless required for the AMA CME credit you choose to claim.

These records are useful for a CME allowance request (see how to use your CME allowance) or for a self-employed physician's conversation with a tax adviser. This isn't tax advice; ask a qualified tax professional what applies to you.

It depends on the session. A presentation or journal module offers AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ only where its accredited provider offers a CME activity and supplies instructions for claiming it; then you claim it as that provider directs. That credit comes from the provider, not from Shift CME, and not every session offers it. Physicians may also self-claim AMA PRA Category 2 Credit™ for learning they judge meets the AMA's requirements, and your Shift CME records can support that claim. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants follow their own certifying bodies' rules: NCCPA lets PAs self-claim Category 2 CME, while AANPCB and ANCC require accredited contact hours, which Shift CME does not award. ABIM MOC points come from ABIM-approved activities. See Category 2 CME examples.

Sample 3-day internal medicine study plan (illustrative)

An example of how a Shift CME conference could be organized. Your own journal modules depend on the specialty you choose.

Want a look first? Explore a sample conference. Wrapping up the year? Our year-end CME checklist helps.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Circulation: 2025 AHA/ACC/multisociety Guideline for the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Management of High Blood Pressure in Adults
2. ACC: New ACC/AHA Guideline Addresses High Blood Pressure (Aug. 14, 2025)
3. ACC: ACC/AHA Issue Updated Guideline for Managing Lipids, Cholesterol (March 13, 2026)
4. Diabetes Care: Summary of Revisions, Standards of Care in Diabetes—2026
5. JACC: 2026 AHA/ACC/ADA/ASN Guideline for the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Management of CKM Syndrome
6. ACC: First-ever guideline on CKM syndrome issued (June 9, 2026)
7. Annals of Internal Medicine: ACP living guideline on pharmacologic treatment of overweight or obesity (April 2026)
8. Novo Nordisk: Wegovy pill FDA approval (Dec. 22, 2025)
9. FDA: First new molecular entity approved under National Priority Voucher program (orforglipron, April 1, 2026)
10. CMS: Medicare GLP-1 Bridge
11. FDA: FDA Approves Treatment for Serious Liver Disease Known as MASH (Aug. 15, 2025)
12. FDA: FDA Approves First Treatment for Patients with Liver Scarring Due to Fatty Liver Disease (March 14, 2024)
13. KDIGO: Publication of 2026 Anemia in CKD Guideline
14. KDIGO: 2026 Diabetes and CKD Guideline draft for public review
15. KDIGO: Update to 2024 CKD Guideline (March 17, 2026)
16. GOLD: 2026 Report Key Changes Summary
17. GINA: 2026 Strategy Report
18. JAMA: USPSTF, Screening for Osteoporosis to Prevent Fractures (2025)
19. Congressional Research Service: Changes to CDC Vaccine Recommendations in 2025 and 2026 (IN12684)
20. ACP: Federal Judge Blocks Immunization Schedule Changes, Stays ACIP Member Appointments (March 16, 2026)
21. Annals: ACP Rapid Practice Points, RSV Vaccines in Adults
22. Annals: ACP Rapid Practice Points, COVID-19 Vaccines for 2025–2026 in Adults
23. IDSA: 2025 Guideline on Complicated Urinary Tract Infections
24. ABIM: Internal Medicine Blueprint (January 2026)
25. ABIM: Longitudinal Knowledge Assessment infographic
26. ABIM Blog: LKA enhancements in 2025
27. ACC: Clinical Policy in Progress
28. AMA: What to know about the other kind of CME credit