Physicians' Needs and Interests in Continuing Medical Education

Rheumatology - the ‘Cinderella’ specialty - an examination of doctors’ attitudes to training and careers

“…In a general practitioner's rural practice in the west of Scotland over a 5-year period 6 % of new consultations were for rheumatic diseases (J. F. C. Waterston, personal communication). In the USA, as in Britain, rheumatic diseases may account for a significant part of the doctor's work and in one study the number of patients attending with musculoskeletal disorders was second only to the number attending with respiratory disorders (Castle and Storey, 1968 '3 2 in the Health Service with a 'forgotten army' of sufferers. Problems include difficulty of recruitment of suitable medical personnel in competition with other specialties and inadequate undergraduate and postgraduate training in rheumatology.…”

“…Problems include difficulty of recruitment of suitable medical personnel in competition with other specialties and inadequate undergraduate and postgraduate training in rheumatology. In one survey, for example, from a list of 120 common conditions, physicians rated arthritis as second in order of importance among their requirements for further training (Castle and Storey, 1968). The purpose of this paper is to consider the problems of recruitment and training in rheumatology and some of the factors involved.…”

Continuing medical education and the medical school in South Africa

“…The statement of requisite abilities, in orthopaedics, for example (Levine, McGuire, and Miller, 1969), based on objective criteria, the analysis of the individual practice patterns and problems in Wisconsin (Mayer, 1973), and the explicit clinical curriculum objectives of the Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine (1973) are examples from which every medical school may learn. The real learning needs of practitioners are not necessarily those which they themselves perceive (Castle and Storey, 1968), and it is clear that this indispensable aspect of continuing medical education, the identification of learning needs, must be reared from its infancy with the greatest care and speed.…”

integrating library services and continuing education. A selective dissemination project

“…Castle and Storey, reporting a 1968 survey, estimated that Utah physicians spent an average of 32 hours per month on medical education, one-half of this time devoted to reading (1 ). A study of physicians in Northwestern New York revealed that journals were by far the most frequently used source of information (2).…”

“…The literature reports that journal reading is an important, if not the most important, source of information and continuing education for physicians. Castle and Storey, reporting a 1968 survey, estimated that Utah physicians spent an average of 32 hours per month on medical education, one-half of this time devoted to reading (1 ). A study of physicians in Northwestern New York revealed that journals were by far the most frequently used source of information (2 Although Michigan physicians ranked short postgraduate courses as their first continuing education preference and journals second, three times more hours were spent reading than attending courses (3).…”