– See how continuing education has fallen down. We have a policy in the association that continuing education should be increased, but we haven’t had much success with this and don’t have a good way to measure it, says Sjukhusläkarna President, Elaine Carlson.
She believes the proposal for measurable continuing education is the most significant the association made at this year’s general meeting of the Physicians’ Union on November 9-10.
The association believes that the current system, Continuing Professional Development (CPD), does not produce sufficient results in practice. The system does not have measurable goals and does not require training of specialists in their specialty.
Instead, continuing education lags behind with less time, lack of budget, and no formal requirements for physicians to stay current. Hospital doctors believe this may be due to poor finances and tight time frames, but also that many managers in the workplace do not have a medical background and understand the needs.
To deal with the problems, Sjukhusläkarna calls for a clearer, more measurable system. The association wants people to take a closer look at the so-called Continuing Medical Education (CME). Briefly and simply, CME can be described as a system in which hours of training give points, and where there is a requirement for the number of points a physician must complete in a year for example.
Hospital physicians want the Physicians Syndicate to begin designing a “framework for mandatory, measurable continuing education requirements,” and for the association to investigate the benefits of continuing medical education.
But the Medical Council is demanding that the hospital doctors’ request be rejected. Among other things, the board points to research showing that CME systems “do not contribute to quality effects in health care,” the board wrote in its response, and that the Medical Association has previously concluded that CME is not good enough.
Instead, the Federation Council wants to see a regulation, where the employer is expected to provide a certain number of training days per year. The Council indicates that work has begun in Parliament and the Government.
But the hospital’s doctors are not satisfied with the Federal Council’s answer and will continue to seek approval. Eileen Carlson points out that the hospital doctors’ proposal did not say that the Physicians Syndicate will Strictly advocate CME, but check what suits Sweden, and as part of this CME investigation.
– The CME system obviously has its drawbacks, like all systems. But it is still the system used in Europe. It is better to have a system than none at all.
Current CPD Too Prevalent?
– Yes it is. And you can put anything in it.
There is a lot that is important, such as leadership training and magazine systems. But we want you to get more training in your specialty. There is a lot of CPD ambiguity, it doesn’t matter if you have further training in your field or something more general.
Elaine Carlson believes that a more realistic system would make it easier to direct continuing education requirements to, for example, Swedish municipalities and regions, SKR. She points out that the Doctors Syndicate has talked for many years about continuing education for a certain number of days, without seeing any improvement.
We saw that the days were shortened. We’ve been talking about ten days of external continuing education for many years. We must become clearer and clearer in what we are asking.
Do you expect there to be a debate?
– Yes, I think there will be some discussion. I think it is very important that we take the lead when it comes to continuing education and say how it should be. We can’t wait for someone else to do this. I hope and believe he will be praised.
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