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The effect of continuing medical education programmes on clinical practice: fact or fantasy
Author(s) -
PAGE G. G.,
VAN WART A. D.,
RAUDZUS D. E.,
KETTYLS G. D. M.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
medical education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.776
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1365-2923
pISSN - 0308-0110
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2923.1979.tb01515.x
Subject(s) - attendance , test (biology) , fantasy , medical education , medicine , population , psychology , family medicine , nursing , computer science , political science , law , environmental health , paleontology , artificial intelligence , biology
Summary This paper reports an evaluation study of a continuing medical education programme on the haemagglutination‐inhibition (H.I.) test for rubella antibodies in terms of its effect on the practice of the doctors in attendance. The study employed a pre‐post control group design. The data on the doctors’ use of the H.I. test were extracted from laboratory records. Through an analysis of co‐variance of these data, the lecture was shown to have had an apparently significant impact on the practice of the doctors in attendance. However, available data describing the number of H.I. tests requested by a population of doctors place serious doubt on this conclusion. This paper describes the design of this study as a prototype, identifies constraints which impede the implementation of such studies, and justifies the need to pursue studies of this nature in spite of these constraints.