The establishment of a continuing medical education system for established Principals in a semi-rural area is described. The essential requirement is a 'link man' in each general practice in the area. Clinical tutors, course organisers and regional advisers are all actively involved to produce a regional educational policy.

The structure and aim of continuing medical education (CME) is shifting from the passive transmission of knowledge to a competency-based model focused on professional development. Self-directed learning is emerging as the foremost educational method for advancing competency-based CME. In a field marked by the constant expansion of knowledge, self-directed learning allows physicians to tailor th...

BACKGROUND Residents are frequently identified by medical students as their most frequent and memorable teachers; residents also teach their peers, junior and senior colleagues, other health professionals, and their patients. Many will teach in their future practice. Developing the skills to become a teacher is an important part of postgraduate education, and warrants a systematic, planned appr...

This paper proposes an action research model as basis for the management of change in continuing professional distance education (CPDE). The model proposed emerged from the need to manage a complex change process from traditional paper-based distance education to e-learning. In order to illustrate and support the model proposed, this paper describes and discusses such a change process in a CPDE...

B ruce Alberts needs no introduction to our readers, each one of whom is sure to have a thoroughly dog-eared copy of " Molecular Biology of the Cell " (1). Alberts, a co-author of this bible of biology, has not only been shaping the scientifi c landscape through his research (2, 3), but also infl uencing the way science is done (4), and the way science is taught (5, 6). Not bad for a man who fa...

INTRODUCTION Because of the need for a well-trained public health workforce, professional competencies have been recently revised by the Institute of Medicine and the National Health Educator Competencies Update Project. This study compared the self-identified training needs of public health educators with the updated competencies and assessed employer support for continuing education. METHOD...

Following the introduction of the 1990 contract for general practitioners and the new postgraduate education allowance, the Northern Ireland Continuing Medical Education Group, comprising the clinical tutors from four Belfast hospitals and members of the University department of general practice, was established to provide high quality co-ordinated continuing medical education for general pract...

BACKGROUND Whether the available Continuing Education (CE) programs meet pharmacists' continuously increasing needs and preferences is open to question. OBJECTIVES to investigate pharmacists' perceptions and attitudes concerning available CE programs, evaluate the pharmacists' choices with regard to selecting among different CE programs, and investigate the factors that are associated with pr...