The Journal of continuing education in the health professions
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J Contin Educ Health Prof · Jan 2009
From the eye of the nurses: 360-degree evaluation of residents.
Evaluations from the health care team can provide feedback useful in guiding residents' professional growth. We describe the significance of 360-degree evaluation of residents by the nursing staff. ⋯ Nursing staff can assess residents on the competencies of interpersonal and communication skills and professionalism. These evaluations provide different perceptions of residents' behavior, which can be useful for formative feedback in residents' development.
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J Contin Educ Health Prof · Jan 2009
EditorialCommercial support of continuing medical education in the United States: the politics of doubt, the value of studies.
The continuing medical education (CME) system of the United States is being questioned for its integrity. Leaders in medicine and in government are asking about the effectiveness of CME, the influence of commercial support, and the value of CME credit and accreditation in assuring CME courses offer valid content, free of commercial bias. Nationally accredited CME organizations received $1.2B in commercial support during 2007, much of it associated with CME in formats shown to be less effective for improving clinical behavior and patient outcomes. ⋯ S. expenditures for health exceed $2.2 trillion, with physicians responsible for clinical decisions that account for a large part of the spending. Approximately $4013 was spent per physician on CME. Rigorous studies are required to describe and explain relationships of CME accreditation and credit to better education and improved patient outcomes.
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Commercial support of continuing medical education/continuing professional development (CME/CPD) is a fact of life currently, though under attack from several sources. Does it have a positive or negative value to industry, to physicians, to society, and to CME professionals? There is sufficient evidence to support positive value to industry. ⋯ There is reason to continue commercial support while broadening the base of support beyond the pharmaceutical industry, not only to avoid perception of bias but also to address CME/CPD needs that do not fit in therapeutic categories. CME professionalism does not depend on commercial support.
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J Contin Educ Health Prof · Jan 2008
Historical ArticleAbraham Flexner and the roots of interprofessional education.
This paper explores the culture underlying the practices of physicians and other health care providers in the 20th century and implications for interprofessional education for collaborative practice in the 21st century. Today's practice of medicine flows from the 1920s work of Dr. ⋯ However, a sequela has been the "stovepiping" of professions, in both their education and their practices, with minimal interaction among professions, and provider- or system-centric care rather than patient-centric care. The result has been learning environments that lack sympathy for interprofessional education and its concomitant of learning and working together.
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J Contin Educ Health Prof · Jan 2008
Continuing medical education, professional development, and requirements for medical licensure: a white paper of the Conjoint Committee on Continuing Medical Education.
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. ⋯ 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.