NO TO MANDATORY CONTINUING MEDICAL-EDUCATION, YES TO MANDATORY PRACTICE AUDITING AND PROFESSIONAL EDUCATIONAL-DEVELOPMENT

THE ISSUE OF MANDATORY CONTINUING MEDICAL EDUCATION (CME) is controver sial. Traditional measures mandate only attendance, not learning, and have no measurable performance end points. There is no evidence that c urrent approaches to CME, mandatory or voluntary, produce sustainable changes in physician practices or application of current knowledge. On going educational development is an important value in a professional, and there is an ethical obligation to keep up to date. Man dating sel f audit of the effect of individual learning on physician's practices and evaluation by the licensing authority are effective ways of ensuri ng the public are protected. The author recommends the use of a person al portfolio to document sources of learning, the effect of learning a nd the auditing of their applications on practice patterns and patient outcomes. A series of principles are proposed to govern its applicati on.