CONTINUING MEDICAL EDUCATION FOR GENERAL PRACTITIONERS

HIGH QUALITY patient care demands, among other factors, that doctors continue to improve their knowledge and skills. This is required of all doctors irrespective of the field in which they practise. It is as necessary for the specialist as it is for the general practitioner. However, it is easy to state a need but not nearly so easy to see that the need is met. It is customary to think of postgraduate education as consisting of attending organized programmes with some degree of regularity. There is, of course, much more to continuing education than the spasmodic attendance at a week-end course or similar programme. To be effective, education needs to be more "continuing" than this. Journals and other sources of medical literature provide one source of material. But how much time should the average doctor spend per week meeting his own educational needs? In 1971 Victorian country practitioners were surveyed by questionnaire regarding their educational needs and the problems they believed they faced in meeting those needs. The results were considered at a special conference held at Monash University in August, 1971, organized by the Melbourne Medical Postgraduate Committee. Although some time has now passed, the report makes interesting and relevant reading.! Of the doctors who completed the questionnaire, 50% considered that between two and five hours per week was the basic requirement for continuing education. If this time commitment is met in the doctor's free time, it can represent a not inconsiderable proportion of his "time off". It is precisely because a systematic approach by the individual practitioner to his continuing educational needs involves a "giving up" of something, that the problem exists. The "giving up" needs to be seen as worthwhile in terms of results and satisfactions. The problem in this respect would seem to be the same for metropolitan and country general practitioners.