CONTINUING MEDICAL-EDUCATION PRACTICES OF COMMUNITY-BASED AND UNIVERSITY-AFFILIATED ANESTHETISTS IN ONTARIO

To remedy the lack of information about the continuing medical educati on (CME) practices of anaesthetists, we designed a survey to define an d compare the CME activities of specialist anaesthetists in community- based and university-affiliated practices: 463 members of the Canadian Anaesthetists' Society in the Province of Ontario (263 community-base d and 200 university-affiliated (University of Toronto) anaesthetists) Data from 304 (65.6%) respondents (172 community-based and 132 univer sity-affiliated anaesthetists) were analyzed by non-parametric analysi s (statistical significance P < 0.05). Most respondents spent between two to four hours per week on CME activities. Journal reading was the most commonly used method to obtain CME and was perceived to be the mo st efficient of the methods surveyed (P < 0.05). Formal teaching, incl uding seminars, workshops, and annual society meetings, although the s econd most commonly used technique to obtain CMF, was considered as ef fective as journal reading. Instructional media techniques were the ka st commonly used and considered the least effective (P < 0.05). Most c ommunity-based and university-affiliated anaesthetists obtained CME by a variety of techniques; of all respondents, 77% have no formal metho d of assessing their learning needs and 88% would consider participati on in a formalized learning needs assessment programme.