European and US groups draw up standards for CME
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《英国医生杂志》
Representatives of medical education accreditors in the United States and Europe have developed the first global standards for continuing medical education (CME) and are hoping the one page document will improve the quality of medical education, rein in pharmaceutical companies?influence, and, ultimately, foster the free movement of doctors across borders.
"Free movement is a mark of success, a useful objective," said Dr Murray Kopelow, who helped develop the new standards and is chief executive officer of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, the United States抯 main accrediting body for medical education. "Then we can spend energy on teaching and learning, and not on accreditation."
Dr Kopelow and representatives of the American Medical Association, the European Union of Medical Specialists, and groups from the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Italy, France, and Spain agreed to the statement this April at a meeting in Rome. The accreditors have until 15 June to decide whether to formally adopt the standards. The document will not be published until that date.
The document doesn抰 bar drug manufacturers from supporting medical education. It says instead that commercial sponsorship or interests of programme planners, presenters, or facilitators must be disclosed to participants, and such support must not influence programme structure or content. Controversy has sometimes surrounded the involvement of commercial companies in the past (BMJ 2003;326:1163).
As it stands, the consensus is an "acceptable compromise" between the benefits and risks of drug industry involvement in CME, said Dr Todor Popov of the Medical University in Sofia, one of the authors of the new document and the chairman of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education in Bulgaria.
"We need at this stage to set up some barriers against the whole system going corrupt by getting the commercial interests dominating the education process," Dr Popov added.
The medical profession could decide within the next 10 years to remove drug companies from the CME business altogether, Dr Kopelow said, but that choice is up to the profession, he added, not its regulators.
The most important feature of the new global standards, says Dr Kopelow, is that they require the providers—and learners—of continuing medical education to measure the effectiveness of these efforts, with the ultimate intent of improving people抯 health.
"If we lose the perspective of the individual sufferer and the need of each patient to get the best of specialty health care then it抯 all useless," said Dr Popov.
Nations beginning to get their own medical education accreditation systems off the ground will be able use the consensus statement as a model, Dr Kopelow said. The document抯 authors have pledged to provide free help to countries looking to put their own systems into place.
"We know that in Africa these conversations are starting," he added. "In the Pacific Rim these conversations are starting."
"If you like it, pick it up, and you抮e suddenly part of a community," he continued. "If you don抰 like it, stay the way you are, and join us when you can."(Maplewood, New Jersey Ann)
"Free movement is a mark of success, a useful objective," said Dr Murray Kopelow, who helped develop the new standards and is chief executive officer of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, the United States抯 main accrediting body for medical education. "Then we can spend energy on teaching and learning, and not on accreditation."
Dr Kopelow and representatives of the American Medical Association, the European Union of Medical Specialists, and groups from the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Italy, France, and Spain agreed to the statement this April at a meeting in Rome. The accreditors have until 15 June to decide whether to formally adopt the standards. The document will not be published until that date.
The document doesn抰 bar drug manufacturers from supporting medical education. It says instead that commercial sponsorship or interests of programme planners, presenters, or facilitators must be disclosed to participants, and such support must not influence programme structure or content. Controversy has sometimes surrounded the involvement of commercial companies in the past (BMJ 2003;326:1163).
As it stands, the consensus is an "acceptable compromise" between the benefits and risks of drug industry involvement in CME, said Dr Todor Popov of the Medical University in Sofia, one of the authors of the new document and the chairman of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education in Bulgaria.
"We need at this stage to set up some barriers against the whole system going corrupt by getting the commercial interests dominating the education process," Dr Popov added.
The medical profession could decide within the next 10 years to remove drug companies from the CME business altogether, Dr Kopelow said, but that choice is up to the profession, he added, not its regulators.
The most important feature of the new global standards, says Dr Kopelow, is that they require the providers—and learners—of continuing medical education to measure the effectiveness of these efforts, with the ultimate intent of improving people抯 health.
"If we lose the perspective of the individual sufferer and the need of each patient to get the best of specialty health care then it抯 all useless," said Dr Popov.
Nations beginning to get their own medical education accreditation systems off the ground will be able use the consensus statement as a model, Dr Kopelow said. The document抯 authors have pledged to provide free help to countries looking to put their own systems into place.
"We know that in Africa these conversations are starting," he added. "In the Pacific Rim these conversations are starting."
"If you like it, pick it up, and you抮e suddenly part of a community," he continued. "If you don抰 like it, stay the way you are, and join us when you can."(Maplewood, New Jersey Ann)