Making a difference: researching master's and doctoral research programmes in medical education.

Context: The Association for the Study of Medical Education states that its aim is to improve the quality of medical education. As a consequence, it commissioned through its Education Research Group a small-scale project to explore the quality of the research methods elements in currently available UK master's and doctoral programmes.

Objective: This study aimed to explore the breadth, depth and diversity of the research methods provision of those programmes currently available to course participants.

The effectiveness of dental postgraduate courses--are we doing the right thing?

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of dental postgraduate one-day courses in radiation protection in Wales.

Design: Analysis of dentists' performance pre- and immediately post-course training.

Subjects And Methods: Two hundred and eighty-five general dental practitioners took part in eight courses.

Hospital doctors' views of their CPD and its relationship to learning in the organization.

Continuing professional development (CPD) has traditionally been an autonomous, professional concern of doctors in the UK. In a changing educational and service climate, can individualized approaches to CPD be reconciled with adult learning principles and learning that is practice-based and multidisciplinary? A survey of the CPD of consultant and non-consultant career grade staff in Wales (UK) has provided some clues on how doctors perceive their learning needs in relation to those of Trust hospitals. It indicated that these doctors pursued traditional forms of continuing education (reading, lectures and meetings), gained clinical knowledge and changed their practice as a result.

The educational evaluation of General Professional Practice of Surgery (GPPS).

The authors conclude that GPPS presents the possibility of enhanced learning from limited opportunities, but only if all parties are fully able to embrace the educational aims of GPPS and follow through its structured and coherent design for learning.

Why general practitioners and consultants change their clinical practice: a critical incident study.

Objective: To describe the complete range of factors which doctors recognise as changing their clinical practice and provide a measure of how often education is involved in change.

Design: Interviews using the critical incident technique.

Setting: Primary and secondary care.