Revalidation is not to be feared and can be achieved by continuous objective assessment.

Revalidation is defined by the International Association of Medical Regulatory Authorities as "the process by which doctors have to regularly show that they are up to date, and fit to practice medicine". In December 2012, the General Medical Council in the United Kingdom introduced revalidation processes that involve medical practitioners collecting a portfolio of evidence for assessment and appraisal by a "responsible officer". The responsible officer is usually the medical director of the hospital or group of primary care providers and reports directly to the General Medical Council on the fitness of the doctor to practice in their current role.

Cumulative sum techniques for surgeons: a brief review.

There has been increasing awareness of the need for monitoring the quality of health care, particularly in the area of surgery. The Cumulative Summation (Cusum) techniques have emerged as a popular tool for performance monitoring in surgery. They allow one to judge whether a given variation in performance is probably due to chance or greater than could be expected from random variation and thus a cause for concern.

Professional monitoring and critical incident reporting using personal digital assistants.

Objective: To assess the practicality of using personal digital assistants (PDAs) for the collection of logbook data, procedural performance data and critical incident reports in anaesthetic trainees.

Design: Pilot study.

Setting: Two tertiary referral centres (in Victoria and New Zealand) and a large district hospital in Queensland.