July 2012
This Month's News
Transforming medical education part of new AMA strategic plan
AMA takes action on MedEd issues at Annual Meeting
By 2020, 5.6 million more health care professionals needed
Top Stories
Desire for online CME is high
Physician demand for online continuing medical education (CME) training is high, with 84 percent of physicians saying in a recent survey that they would prefer attending CME events virtually. Only 6.4 percent of those surveyed, however, said they actually participate in virtual training.
"The portrait of the physician learner has changed dramatically," said a medical education expert quoted in an American Medical News article about the study. "Physicians who graduated from medical school within the last decade are accustomed to using technology in their personal lives and also in their work to, for instance, communicate with patients and colleagues, to prescribe medications and order tests. Increasingly, physicians are expecting the same types of experiences to enhance the continual learning they must pursue during their postgraduate medical education years."
Physicians surveyed in the study noted a number of benefits to virtual CME, including:
- Viewing "on-demand" content at my convenience–80 percent
- Avoiding the hassles of travel to places I'd rather not visit–53 percent
- Spending more time at home, relaxing or having fun–45 percent
- Better overall patient care–35 percent
With a variety of online CME courses, the AMA is well positioned to bridge the gap between those wanting online CME and those actually participating in it. These include:
- Three tutorials that outline best practices for using health information technology, including ePrescribing, pre-visit planning and point-of-care documentation.
- A Performance Improvement CME activity that shows physicians how to calculate and document patients' body mass index during routine office visits and thereby help physicians treat and prevent obesity.
- "Promoting Healthy Families," which helps physicians talk about healthy behaviors with their adult patients in a way that may lead to positive changes for the whole family.
- The "Physician's Guide to Personal Health" activity, part of the AMA Healthier Life Steps® program.
- The hundreds of CME activities available through The JAMA Network.
