Transforming Continuing Professional Development for Healthcare Professionals to Meet National Goals in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi Commission for Health Specialties (SCFHS), the regulatory agency for health professions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), sought to evolve the continuing professional development (CPD) ecosystem for the country and to promote the concept of life-long learning for healthcare professionals. SCFHS audited its own CPD accreditation system, reviewed internationally recognised CPD accreditation criteria, adopted a new set of standards, and trained its staff and provider community in their adoption. SCFHS also deployed a range of programmes and grants to support healthcare educators and researchers engaged in CPD.

International Medical Graduates and the Physician Workforce.

Importance: Physician shortages and the geographic maldistribution of general and specialist physicians impair health care delivery and worsen health inequity in the US. International medical graduates (IMGs) represent a potential solution given their ready supply.

Observations: Despite extensive clinical experience, evidence of competence, and willingness to practice in underserved communities, IMGs experience multiple barriers to entry in the US, including the immigration process, the pathways available for certification and licensing, and institutional reluctance to consider non-US-trained candidates.

The Risks and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence in Endocrinology.

Artificial intelligence (AI) holds the promise of addressing many of the numerous challenges healthcare faces, which include a growing burden of illness, an increase in chronic health conditions and disabilities due to aging and epidemiological changes, higher demand for health services, overworked and burned-out clinicians, greater societal expectations, and rising health expenditures. While technological advancements in processing power, memory, storage, and the abundance of data have empowered computers to handle increasingly complex tasks with remarkable success, AI introduces a variety of meaningful risks and challenges. Among these are issues related to accuracy and reliability, bias and equity, errors and accountability, transparency, misuse, and privacy of data.

The Role of Specialty Certification in Career-Long Competence.

Across the medical profession there is broad acceptance of the critical role of continuing medical education (CME) in enabling physicians to adapt to both new information and evolving expectations within the profession. In the presence of widespread participation in CME, some have attempted to question, discredit, or marginalize the role of ongoing lifelong assessment of physician knowledge and skills through specialty continuing certification, advocating instead for a participatory standard based only on engagement with CME. This essay outlines the limitations of physician self-evaluation and clarifies the need for external assessments.

Paving the Way Forward for Evidence-Based Continuing Professional Development.

Continuing professional development (CPD) fosters lifelong learning and enables health care providers to keep their knowledge and skills current with rapidly evolving health care practices. Instructional methods promoting critical thinking and decision making contribute to effective CPD interventions. The delivery methods influence the uptake of content and the resulting changes in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behavior.

Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Accredited Continuing Medical Education in the United States.

Introduction: The pandemic created new demands on the accredited continuing medical education (CME) community. Facing economic, resource, and personal challenges, educators had to cancel or repurpose in-person learning, and design and deliver effective online education. This short report analyzes the effect of this pandemic on CME in the United States.

Incentivising Higher Level Outcome Achievement in Continuing Education: Five-Year Experience from the ACCME Commendation Criteria.

The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME®) Menu of Criteria for Commendation was created to incentivise a variety of behaviours and outcomes from accredited providers. ACCME analysed data from among the 1,053 accreditation decisions made between November 2017 and March 2022, of which 122 had applied for commendation. Accredited providers plan for higher level outcomes in their activities at an increasing rate over the past five years.

Facilitating Flexibility: The Role of CPD Regulators and Accreditors during a Crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed healthcare systems - including CPD learning environments - around the world. Rarely has there been a time in recent history when almost the entire healthcare profession urgently needed to learn new skills. At the same time, education providers endured new personal and professional stressors.

Learning Together: Engaging Patients as Partners in CPD.

The goal of continuing professional development (CPD) is to improve patient care. However, traditionally, CPD has been planned and taught by clinicians, for clinicians, who tend to be protective of the professional-only environment for learning and are wary of the contributions and participation of patients. Although patients are sometimes included as guest speakers, this role has not typically extended to planning, content development, or serving as key faculty-ultimately excluding the patient perspective from the development and delivery of CPD.

Continuing Board Certification: Seeing Our Way Forward.

Background: Traditionally the role of certifying boards has been to hold physicians accountable for demonstrating standards of competence. In recent years, the authority of continuing board certification has been challenged, due to multiple factors that have shifted the dynamics. The breadth and depth of new information, combined with the pressures of system barriers and administrative burdens, can make it challenging for clinicians stay current and maintain their own competency.

Comparison of Continuing Medical Education at U.S. Medical Schools and Other Accredited Organizations: A 20-Year Analysis.

Purpose: To describe a long-term overview of accredited continuing medical education (CME) at M.D.-granting medical schools in the United States.

Navigating Tumultuous Change in the Medical Profession: The Coalition for Physician Accountability.

Collaboration among the national organizations responsible for self-regulation in medicine in the United States is critical, as achieving the quadruple aim of enhancing the patient experience and improving population health while lowering costs and improving the work life of clinicians and staff is becoming more challenging. The leaders of the national organizations responsible for accreditation, assessment, licensure, and certification recognize this and have come together as the Coalition for Physician Accountability. The coalition, which meets twice per year, was created in 2011 as a discursive space for group discussion and action related to advancing health care, promoting professional accountability, and improving the education, training, and assessment of physicians.

Continuing professional development to foster behaviour change: From principles to practice in health professions education.

Healthcare professionals need to continuously improve their knowledge, skills and performance to effectively function in an ever-changing healthcare environment. They depend on continuing professional development programs (CPD), either within or outside their institutions, to reflect on and update their clinical practice. Professional growth requires more than knowledge transfer; it requires curiosity, humility, self-awareness and a motivation for mastery.

The Role and Value of Public Members in Health Care Regulatory Governance.

American medicine has progressively embraced transparency and accountability in professional self-regulation. While public members serving on health care regulatory boards involved with the accreditation, assessment, certification, education, and licensing of physicians provide formal opportunities for voicing public interests, their presence has not been deeply explored. Using 2016 survey and interview data from health care organizations and public members, the authors explore the value and challenges of public members.

Translating evidence into practice: Lessons for CPD.

Background: Failure to translate best evidence into practice often generates inappropriate, unsafe, and costly healthcare. The continuing professional development (CPD) of physicians and other health professionals represents a widely underutilized strategy to improve both clinician performance and healthcare quality and safety. The evidence: Despite the clear evidence of the potential impact of CPD based in learning theory and science, some CPD providers, health systems, and clinicians themselves implement less-than-effective effective learning strategies.

Inspiring Curiosity and Restoring Humility: The Evolution of Competency-Based Continuing Medical Education.

Dr. David Price and his colleagues, in their article in this issue of Academic Medicine, summarize the findings from recent studies regarding the association of Maintenance of Certification and physicians' learning and improvements in care. Their evaluation demonstrates that physicians often changed their practice because of these educational interventions.