Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13150

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Hampton T.
Experts Debate Need to Improve Quality and Oversight of Continuing Education
JAMA 2008 Mar 5; 299:(9):1003-1004
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/299/9/1003

Abstract:

Although continuing education of physicians and other health professionals is essential to ensure that patients receive current and correct medical care, experts are questioning the nature and funding of many programs.

“Continuing education in the health professions is in disarray” and the accreditation mechanisms for it are “unnecessarily complex yet insufficiently rigorous,” concluded a summary of a conference last fall on continuing education in the health professions (http://www.josiahmacyfoundation.org/index.php?section=home). The conference, convened by the Josiah Macy, Jr Foundation, included 36 leaders in medicine, nursing, and education who debated how best to keep clinicians abreast of new developments and who should pay for such efforts…