Best medical practices in social accountability and continuing professional development: A survey and literature review

Abstract

The authors surveyed Canadian medical schools to identify gaps in current continuing professional development (CPD) with reference to social accountability and compared the results to best practices identified in a literature review. The literature review identified 15 relevant articles. Several themes on best practices emerged. In a fundamental social contract with society, physicians receive privileges in return for responding to social needs. CPD is part of this contract. To meet the terms of the contract, CPD must be credible, unbiased and respond to social needs. Physicians have a responsibility to maintain quality; CPD is one tool to do that. CPD should be measured against values of relevance, quality, cost effectiveness, and equity. The survey asked all 17 Canadian medical schools to report CPD initiatives that respond to societal needs. Eleven schools responded with descriptions of 28 such initiatives. Most initiatives focused on values of quality and relevance; fewer focused on cost effectiveness. Most often, initiatives addressed medical expertise and interprofessional collaboration, least often health advocacy. Faculty initiated most initiatives, rather than students, community or society. These findings lead to recommendations for future directions of CPD.

Achieving social accountability through interprofessional collaboration: The Canadian medical schools experience

“…The first was a comprehensive literature review on social accountability completed by a partnership of Memorial University, the University of Toronto, the University of Western Ontario, and the University of British Columbia (Fleet, Kirby, Cutler, Dunikowski, Nasmith & Shaughnessy, 2004). The second document, led by the University of Saskatchewan, was a Canadian inventory of medical school initiatives that exemplified best practices in social accountability (Thompson & Davis, 2005). This special issue contains articles that describe these initiatives in further detail.…”

Le chemin de croix du développement professionnel continu (DPC)

“…La responsabilité sociale du médecin consiste à prendre en compte le contexte sociétal de l'action médicale et à intégrer la pratique du médecin dans un fonctionnement collectif. Il s'agit de prendre en compte les déterminants de la santé liés au contexte social et à l'environnement, les besoins de santé de la population et à déve-lopper la collaboration interprofessionnelle et le travail en équipe [1,9,13,14]. Dans les pays qui mettent en place une recertification périodique des médecins, le DPC est un élément central de ce processus [1,7].…”

“…Il s'agit de faire évoluer sa mise en oeuvre afin de l'adapter aux besoins des professionnels et pour qu'il soit un réel vecteur d'amélioration de la qualité et de la sécurité des soins pour les patients [13]. Pour ce qui concerne les professionnels des établissements de santé, le DPC doit être une incitation pour déployer des programmes d'EPP collectifs, intégrés dans le fonctionnement des équipes, fondés sur l'analyse des pratiques réelles et orientés vers l'amélioration de la qualité et de la sécurité des soins, en cohérence avec les attentes de la certification des établisse-ments de santé [1,4,9].…”

A paediatric social responsiveness project in Thailand

“…To raise the learning level regarding community health problems from the basic ‘social responsibility’ level to the higher ‘social responsiveness’ level, the CV Crowded Community Project was initiated into the paediatric residency training programme in 2010–2011 as an extracurricular activity, based on the idea that paediatric residents can play an important role in recognising and helping to alleviate health problems in the community. Social responsiveness means personal engagement in a course of actions responding to social needs …”