The Asia Pacific Scholar (Jul 2024)

The state of Continuing Professional Development in East and Southeast Asia among the medical practitioners

  • Dujeepa D Samarasekera,
  • Shuh Shing Lee,
  • Su Ping Yeo,
  • Julie Chen,
  • Ardi Findyartini,
  • Nadia Greviana,
  • Budi Wiweko,
  • Vishna Devi Nadarajah,
  • Chandramani Thuraisingham,
  • Jen-Hung Yang,
  • Lawrence Sherman

DOI
https://doi.org/10.29060/TAPS.2024-9-3/OA3045
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 3
pp. 1 – 14

Abstract

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Introduction: Continuing medical education and continuing professional development activities (CME/CPD) improve the practice of medical practitioners and allowing them to deliver quality clinical care. However, the systems that oversee CME/CPD as well as the processes around design, delivery, and accreditation vary widely across countries. This study explores the state of CME/CPD in the East and South East Asian region from the perspective of medical practitioners, and makes recommendations for improvement. Methods: A multi-centre study was conducted across five institutions in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. The study instrument was a 28-item (27 five-point Likert scale and 1 open-ended items) validated questionnaire that focused on perceptions of the current content, processes and gaps in CME/CPD and further contextualised by educational experts from each participating site. Descriptive analysis was undertaken for quantitative data while the data from open-ended item was categorised into similar categories. Results: A total of 867 medical practitioners participated in the study. For perceptions on current CME/CPD programme, 75.34% to 88.00% of respondents agreed that CME/CPD increased their skills and competence in providing quality clinical care. For the domain on pharmaceutical industry-supported CME/CPD, the issue of commercial influence was apparent with only 30.24%-56.92% of respondents believing that the CME/CPD in their institution was free from commercial bias. Key areas for improvement for future CME/CPD included 1) content and mode of delivery, 2) independence and funding, 3) administration, 4) location and accessibility and 5) policy and collaboration. Conclusion: Accessible, practice-relevant content using diverse learning modalities offered by unbiased content providers and subject to transparent and rigorous accreditation processes with minimal administrative hassle are the main considerations for CME/CPD participants.

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