Overview

Tradition of the CME Congress: Research andPractice for Everyone

Every four years, the Society for Academic Continuing Med-ical Education ~SACME!, the Alliance for ContinuingMedical Education ~ACME!, the Association for Hospi-tal Medicine Education ~AHME!, and, since 2004, the Ca-nadian Association for Continuing Health Education~CACHE! have committed to developing a CME congressfocused on promoting scholarship, innovation, and researchin the field of continuing professional development ~CPD!0continuing medical education ~CME!.

CME Congress 2008 was held in Vancouver, British Co-lumbia, on May 29–31, 2008. It attracted 515 registrantsincluding 38 from Asia, Australasia, Europe, the Middle East,and several African nations. Building on the success of pre-vious congresses, the planning of CME Congress 2008 fo-cused on five overarching themes. Each theme was introducedthrough a plenary session given by a superbly qualified groupof invited faculty with demonstrated leadership and researchexpertise. The themes of Congress 2008 were:

1. Interprofessional Learning2. Educating Physicians for Systems-Based Practice3. Physician Competence Assessment4. Learning Theory—Self-Assessment, Self-Direction, and Other

Myths: Implications for the Self-Regulating Professional5. Advancing the Global CME0CPD Agenda: A Consortium

Approach

In addition to the invited plenary presentations, regis-trants submitted proposals for symposia, workshops, shortresearch paper presentations, or posters of scholarly work toaddress or complement the conference themes. Each pro-posal underwent rigorous peer review; the body of workpresented during Congress 2008 reflects a collection of in-novations, including educational strategies and assessmenttools to serve diverse topics, populations, and practice settings.

Contents of the Supplement

In his opening comments, Eric Holmboe, MD, Senior VicePresident for Quality Research and Academic Affairs at the

American Board of Internal Medicine, reviews the chal-lenges and opportunities in developing a multifaceted eval-uation system for practicing physicians. Dr. Holmboehighlights research findings documenting changes in physi-cian performance over time and the multiple factors thatcontribute to errors in clinical reasoning. Contrasting dif-ferences between assessment within residency or fellowshiptraining and practice, he describes the importance of devel-oping a multimodal approach to assessment of practicingphysicians, integrating into the process such tools as med-ical record audit, multisource feedback, knowledge basedassessments, evidence-informed practice improvement mod-ules, and simulation. Holmboe stresses that if CME0CPDintends to foster meaningful improvements to practice, phy-sician assessment must be a component of continuing pro-fessional development systems, as long as assessments aremultifaceted, comprehensive, and applicable to what physi-cians do and account for practice contexts and systems.

An article by John Gilbert, PhD, Principal and ProfessorEmeritus, College of Health Disciplines, University of Brit-ish Columbia, contrasts the influence of Abraham Flexneron medical education with the evolving challenges in de-fining, fostering, and measuring interprofessional education~IPE!. Dr. Gilbert reviews the research claims for interpro-fessional education and speculates regarding theoretical ap-proaches to conceptually defining and measuring the impactof IPE and its implications for collaborative practice.

The article by Charles Kilo, MD, MPH, CEO of Green-Field Health and Executive Director of the not-for-profitTrust for Healthcare Excellence, focuses further on the needfor and importance of educating physicians for systems-based practice. Dr. Kilo reviews key principles of systemstheory, the roles systems play in improving patient safetyand changing physician behavior, and methods and contentfor promoting learning that leads to improvement. He chal-lenges organizational leaders to develop and implement astrategic approach to drive change, and he provides key rec-ommendations for ways CME can contribute to improvingsystem performance that leads to improved care for indi-viduals and populations.

Global Challenges in CME0CPD include presentationsfrom four international CME0CPD leaders addressing is-sues facing CME0CPD systems throughout the world. Thefour perspectives include views from Professor Marietjie deVillers, Deputy Dean: Education, University of Stellen-

Disclosure: The author reports none.

© 2008 The Alliance for Continuing Medical Education, the Society forAcademic Continuing Medical Education, and the Council on CME,Association for Hospital Medical Education. • Published online in WileyInterScience ~www.interscience.wiley.com!. DOI: 10.10020chp.199

JOURNAL OF CONTINUING EDUCATION IN THE HEALTH PROFESSIONS, 28(S1):S2–S3, 2008

bosch, South Africa; Dr. Barry Taylor, Director of CPD AdultMedicine Division, Royal Australasian College of Physi-cians, New Zealand; Dr. Ian Starke, Director of CPD, Fed-eration of Royal College of Physicians, United Kingdom;and Dr. Eng Hin Lee, Chairman, CME Coordinating Com-mittee, Singapore Medical Council, Singapore. Despite thevariation in development of CME systems within these coun-tries, the challenges of promoting participation in CPD, theeffort to enhance relevance and produce responsive CMEcredit systems, the desire to assure competence and culturaldiversity while improving physician career development andlessening professional isolation were all remarkably similar.The authors explore solutions including the importance ofdeveloping strategies to promote international collaborationin CME0CPD.

Glenn Regehr, PhD, Associate Director, Wilson Centre,and Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto,Faculty of Medicine, reviews the evidence underlying as-sumptions for how self-assessment, self-direction, and self-regulation have been included to promote learning withinCME0CPD systems. He summarizes the limitations or pau-city of evidence for the assumptions that physicians usereflection to search actively for gaps, find gaps when theylook for them, address identified gaps through engagingin learning activities, and then incorporate new knowl-edge and skills into their practice. Dr. Regehr highlightsthe need to consider a new model of self-regulation andmaintenance of competence that includes self-administeredobjective tests of knowledge and skills, actual perfor-

mance data, and guided mentoring strategies to assist inincorporating data regarding poor performance, without lossof self-confidence.

CME Congress 2008 provided registrants with an oppor-tunity to participate in a diverse spectrum of opportunitiesprovided through interactive symposia, workshops, and briefpresentations of research studies. The Abstracts feature ofthis supplement includes only original research submissionsthat were peer reviewed, presented, and submitted by theauthors for publication in the Journal of Continuing Edu-cation in the Health Professions.

CME Congress 2008 reflects the dedication and commit-ment of the Scientific Steering Committee, co-chaired byDr. Jocelyn Lockyer; the Economic Committee, chaired bySuzanne Murray; and the International Committee, co-chairedby Drs. Grace Tang and Kendall Ho. I want to express mysincere thanks to the leadership and staff in the Universityof British Columbia Division of Continuing Professional De-velopment and Knowledge Translation for their outstandingorganizational expertise, collaboration, and professionalismin supporting development of this conference.

It is my hope that after reviewing the quality of the schol-arship included in this supplement, you will plan to contrib-ute to the next CME Congress in 2012.

Craig Campbell, MD, FRCPCDirector, Office of Professional AffairsThe Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of CanadaCo-Chair, CME Congress 2008

Overview

JOURNAL OF CONTINUING EDUCATION IN THE HEALTH PROFESSIONS—28(S1), 2008 S3DOI: 10.1002/chp