Celeste Kolanko, Managing Director of PCM Scientific and member of the Good CME Practice group, reflects on the commonalities and differences in medical education across the globe.

Recorded 7 September 2016 at a MedComms Networking event in Oxford. Produced by NetworkPharma.tv

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ABSTRACT:

All healthcare professionals need to stay up-to-date with their medical education. The field is constantly evolving, and the overall aims of improving patient and public health are the same across the globe. Aside from these similarities, there are few commonalities.

Continuing medical education (CME) is becoming increasingly popular in Europe, though not all countries require it. There exists a multiplicity of accreditation bodies, societies and different types of CME providers. Among rapid developments in the field over recent years, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) has set up a common framework for reporting of industry funding to healthcare professionals, which came into effect in June 2016. However, its interpretation varies from country to country.

In the USA, a transparency agreement known as the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which requires medical product manufacturers to disclose payment to healthcare professionals, has exemptions for events and materials accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME). This contributes to a clear distinction between CME and promotional education, and CME providers are pushing the boundaries, in a good way, in terms of developing inter-professional multi-disciplinary education and patient and community involvement.

The Asia-Pacific region is a fast-growing market for medical education. Considerable opportunities likewise exist in emerging markets, where medical education has the potential to address the global healthcare talent gap via distance learning and public health initiatives. Local representation, partnerships, languages, laws, guidelines, and accreditation bodies need to be taken into consideration in creating education for a global audience.

Written by Penny Gray, Freelance Medical Writer

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We are building a library of free webcasts, like this one, for the global MedComms Community and others at http://www.networkpharma.tv and we’d welcome your suggestions for new topics and speakers.

Full details of this MedComms Networking event are at http://medcommsnetworking.com/event78.html

Celeste’s presentation (PDF format) is at http://medcommsnetworking.com/presentations/kolanko01_070916.pdf

Celeste’s Linkedin page is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/celeste-kolanko-3846571/

More about PCM Scientific can be found at http://www.pcmscientific.com
More about the Good CME Practice Group can be found at http://goodcmepractice.eu

Filming and technical direction by Mario Crispino, Freelance Cameraman & Editor

[For the avoidance of doubt: this video is intended to be freely accessible to all. Please feel free to share and use however you like. Cheers, Peter Llewellyn, Director NetworkPharma Ltd and Founder of the MedComms Networking Community activity at http://www.medcommsnetworking.com]