An assessment of the quality and usefulness of the EuroTransMed satellite programmes in continuing medical education

The quality and usefulness of the EuroTransMed (ETM) international satellit e medical educational programmes were assessed. Medical educational session s are broadcast once a week from London in English to over 140 sites in Eur ope. The aim is to provide an update of medical information to physicians a s a part of their continuing medical education (CME). A questionnaire was d istributed to two groups of postgraduate medical trainees, internists and f amily doctors. The groups viewed two video-recordings of the satellite broa dcasts, translated into Polish. The first programme was watched by 219 doct ors and the second by 265. There was a 96% response rate to the questionnai res. Results suggest that the ETM satellite programmes are both relevant an d of good quality, but are of limited usefulness to the target audience. Th ese limitations result mainly from a shortage of time available for such a form of education, as well as from difficulty understanding the English bro adcasts, because of a lack of fluency among general practitioners in Poland .