Examples of CME-Onlines many course offerings.
Visit
the CME home page for more information
Our programs in allergy and immunology are inclusive
of all of our full-time and private practice faculty members. That builds
an academic camaraderie among members of the division.
PHILIP E. KORENBLAT, MD, CME ACTIVITY CHAIR
CME-Online offers convenient, well-structured courses
with appropriate graphics.
DENNIS P. OWENS, MD, PHD '82, PSYCHIATRY ASSOCIATES
OF KANSAS CITY, HAS EARNED 22 CREDITS ONLINE
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THREE WEEKS AFTER anthrax-laden
letters contaminated U.S. media and government offices last October, the
School of Medicines Office of Continuing Medical Education rolled
out a new course on bioterrorism and public health.
Infectious disease experts discussed spotting infectious agents. Carol
S. North, MD, professor of psychiatry and an authority on post-traumatic
stress disorder following major disasters, outlined the psychological
impacts and ways to deal with them. A Muslim professor from the Hilltop
campus explained the social costs of the current cultural tensions. Other
experts addressed issues of hospital preparedness.
We want to respond quickly to physicians educational
needs, explains Gail M. Goodenow, director of continuing medical
education (CME) at Washington University.
To get word out about the bioterrorism course, the department
used e-mails and facsimiles to complement traditional brochures. Nearly
300 physicians attended.
The bioterrorism program exemplifies the changes taking
place in continuing medical education. New topics, new formats and new
ways of reaching physicians with them are developing at an accelerating
pace, mirroring the dramatic changes within the medical profession itself.
Hands-on training, such as this laparoscopic procedure,
is among the ways CME gives physicians the healing edge.
In an environment where new discoveries, technologies and
treatments revolutionize medical care on a daily basis, ongoing education
becomes ever more critical. Doctors require continuing education credits
for their annual licensing, but much more importantly, they need up-to-the-minute
information to deliver the best care to their patients.
To keep abreast of these changes in medical knowledge, the
CME staff depend on medical school faculty who, Goodenow says, are eager
to share their knowledge.
They see it as part of their role as educators to
do undergraduate, graduate and continuing education, part of their mission
as academicians, she explains. Our faculty initiate and develop
content for CME programswe facilitate the planning and accreditation.
Physicians know whats new in medicine. In many
cases, our faculty are doing the research, Goodenow says. Faculty
experts know what research should be translated into continuing education
and they communicate that expertise in CME courses.
And they do it prolifically. Last year, the CME office presented
275 programs 137 courses and 138 rounds or in-house conferences.
These offerings added up to nearly 7,500 hours of instruction and 109,100
credit hours granted.
Lining up teachers, then, is only part of the challenge.
How to deliver information in a manner that is most useful and accessible
to physician-learners is an equally important aspect of CME.
Contemporary approaches to CME must be available to
the health professional at the teachable moment. To be most effective,
the learner needs to access information whenever a question arises,
says W. Edwin Dodson, MD, associate vice chancellor for continuing medical
education and associate dean for medical school admissions. With
ever-increasing time demands on physicians, CME-Online will become all
the more important to practicing physicians.
Not surprisingly, Web-based learning has proved to be one
of the most effective new methods for delivering CME instruction. CME-Online
has shown steady growth since its introduction in 1999. Recently the office
began promoting CME-Online through the Washington University Medical Center
Alumni Association (WUMCAA), whose members are one of CMEs major
constituencies. The response has been great, Goodenow says.
We have nearly 400 new participants since April.
WUMCAA was instrumental in the development of the majority
of CME-Online courses via its educational funding. With the help of alumni,
the number of available courses has grown steadily over the past year.
The Alumni Associations support has allowed
us to extend the scope and reach of our educational programs for physicians
in practice, says Dodson. As a result, physicians anywhere
have ready access to educational material crafted by our faculty.
Most CME-Online programs are developed from an earlier didactic
lecture edited for online presentation. The advantages for participating
physicians are numerous: They can study the material at any time of day
or night, at their own pace; instructors make themselves available for
questions and discussion via e-mail, and participants can test repeatedly
until they feel comfortable with the new knowledge. Authors of CME-Online
courses review and update their courses as necessary, so online material
is as current as the latest discovery.
And even as CME-Online is taking offcurrent course
topics range from osteoporosis to sleep apnea, from prostate cancer to
heart diseaseCME staff continue to explore alternative methods for
delivering medical information to physicians, such as DVD or CD-ROM.
In todays rapidly changing
health care environment, primary care providers are expected
to do more and more, and they may need to perform procedures in their
offices. For them, traditional didactic teaching methods are often utilized.
One of these programs may include, for example, hypertension, coronary
artery disease, cholesterol and lipids under the broader category of cardiac
health. Other CME programs deal with a category of patient care, such
as womens health.
We also do programs that are overviews of best practices,
Goodenow says. These can be multispecialty-oriented programs. Presentations
may include multiple illnesses, assessment and diagnosis, and a literature
review to present a treatment plan based on evidence our faculty have
researched.
CME director Gail M. Goodenow with Phillip E. Korenblat,
MD, professor of clinical medicine, who says the best way to learn
is to teach.
This kind of training relieves the practicing physician
of the need to investigate numerous treatment protocols to discover the
most effective.
Other CME courses provide traditional hands-on opportunities
for physicians to acquire new skills and techniques while taking advantage
of new educational technologies. For example, in a current offering on
urologic laparoscopic techniques, participants attend lectures, view videotapes
and actually practice procedures in the laboratory. They also watch the
faculty perform operations via two-way audio/video broadcasts that connect
the operating room and the conference room, a setup that allows spontaneous
exchange and faculty-learner interaction.
With all of these offerings, the CME program reaches out
to a diverse audience. Enrollees are primarily physicians, physicians-in-training,
residents and fellows. Nearly half of the CME credits given last year
were to School of Medicine and local referring physicians participating
in ongoing rounds. But with national accreditation, course offerings also
draw physicians from across the nation and around the world.
With the help of faculty and alumni, the continuing medical
education team works hard to keep its offerings complete with leading-edge
medical discoveries offered through a variety of educational formats.
The quality of instruction at the School of Medicine, coupled
with multiple learning options offered by the CME program, keeps Washington
University among the most comprehensive resources for practicing physicians.
Since its debut, CME-Online has proved popular and it should continue
to grow, perhaps as the most practical and convenient of these many options.
The goal of CME is to move the latest information
from the academic setting into the medical community, says Dodson,
where physicians put it into practicehelping people now.
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