Continuing medical education, professional development, and requirements for medical licensure: A white paper of the Conjoint Committee on Continuing Medical Education

Abstract

To provide the best care to patients, a physician must commit to lifelong learning, but continuing education and evaluation systems in the United States typically require little more than records of attendance for professional association memberships, hospital staff privileges, or reregistration of a medical license. While 61 of 68 medical and osteopathic licensing boards mandate that physicians participate in certain numbers of hours of continuing medical education (CME), 17 of them require physicians to participate in legislatively mandated topics that may have little to do with the types of patients seen by the applicant physician. Required CME should evolve from counting hours of CME participation to recognizing physician achievement in knowledge, competence, and performance. State medical boards should require valid and reliable assessment of physicians' learning needs and collaborate with physician and CME communities to assure that legislatively mandated CME achieves maximal benefit for physicians and patients. To assure the discovery and use of best practices for continuing professional development and for maintenance of competence, research in CME and physician assessment should be raised as a national priority.

Achieving desired results and improved outcomes: Integrating planning and assessment throughout learning activities

“…If what we have presented is appealing, we suggest the following activities. 1. Think of your own learning about this approach in the same way that physicians learn about clinical issues: recognizing a need; searching for resources to address the need; engaging in learning activities~don't forget practice and feedback!…”

“…Unfortunately, this situation has been reinforced for years because documentation of attendance has been all that physicians have had to demonstrate for certification by their professional associations, re-registration of their medical licenses, or credentialing for hospital staff privileges. 1 In recent years, the discomfort around this situation has increased steadily. While the perception of deteriorating quality of care has been recognized for some time as the likely result of a combination of system and human errors, 2 some observers believe that directing educational efforts at enhancing physician capabilities to provide the best possible care to their patients is one of the many approaches currently proposed to address suboptimal care.…”

International Federation for Emergency Medicine Model Curriculum for Continuing Professional Development

“…CME may therefore not suffice to significantly narrow the gap between clinical practice and current evidence. 10 The limitations of CME have led to the concept of CPD. New medical knowledge should transform concepts through research into clinical practice.…”

The role of information technology in strengthening human resources for health

“…Several studies have raised concerns in relation to the management and coordination of IT and CE (Dooley and Umble, 2004;Miller et al, 2008). While frameworks for CE are Quality is also a concern in relation to the growing number of available CE resources.…”

“…In South Pacific countries such as Fiji, the health sector is planning how to implement legislated CE requirements (Medical and Dental Practitioner Decree 2010 (Fiji)), where in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu no legislative requirements presently exist for CE. Across the Pacific, CE frameworks replicate systems in other regions, based on quantitative "hour counting" (Miller et al, 2008). (Chen et al, 2007).…”