Continuing Medical Education

Structure and Purpose

Structure of CME Committee

The Department of Surgery committee of representatives from each surgical section meets periodically to carry out and encourage continuing medical education.

Purpose of CME Committee

1. To facilitate continuing medical education by encouraging and assisting in the development of specialty continuing medical education.
2. To compare methods of production of continuing medical education.
3. To supply expertise when required by new course chairs.
4. To coordinate with the postgraduate education director any programs related to resident education.
5. To encourage participation in the Royal college of Physicians and Surgeons MOCOMP program for enhanced personal learning.

Continuing Education activities within the Department of Surgery continue to expand.

Continued personal learning of the members in the Department include:

1. Self-Directed Learning.
2. Formal Provider Activities.
3. Scholarly Activities.

For the sake of documentation, the self-directed learning activities include reading, case care research, practice audits, lectures, rounds, videotapes, etc. If these activities influence practice patterns, they can be included in one's Portfolio of Learning that the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons MOCOMP program is generating for every Fellow or member of the Surgical Department.

Formal provider activities largely include conferences, workshops, self-assessment programs, clinical traineeships, OSCE's, animal lab skills learning and others. Royal College Visiting Professorships have been awarded in the Divisions of General Surgery, Urology, Vascular Surgery and Neurosurgery. Regular monthly Visiting Professor Rounds in the Department of Surgery are scheduled throughout the year.

A workshop on Computers in Continuing Medical Education was held in April 1994, sponsored by the Department of Surgery and the Regional Advisory Committee of the Royal College. Computer software and hardware for enhancing personal learning attracted a large audience.

Scholarly activities of Department of Surgery members are listed elsewhere but form a substantial part of individual members' annual CME activities.

Funding of CME-related events still depends heavily on industry support. The CME Committee is grateful for the generosity of all sponsors of conferences, workshops, surgical skill labs and visiting speakers.

Future growth of CME is expected to accelerate. The Royal College MOCOMP program will encourage Fellows and faculty members to use PC Diary and Royal Collage BBS services to document personal learning. Enhanced use of Medlines, Internet and CD Rom in education will facilitate planning and programming of CME activities.

The Department of Surgery has secured secretarial services for development of a CME and Surgical Education office. New energy and, hopefully, more activity will occur in the Department of Surgery CME as a result.