CME stands for Continuing Medical Education. It consists of all educational activities that can help develop, maintain and increase the professional knowledge and skills of medical professionals to provide better service to the patients.
Continuing Medical Education
Importance of Continuing Medical Education-CME Credit
Generally, CME refers to CME credits that are required by medical professionals to maintain their medical licenses.
Most hospitals require their medical professionals to acquire a certain number of CME credits so that they can see patients.
Becoming a physician, nurse or other health care specialist requires many years of education. But the learning doesn’t stop once a license and board certification have been earned and practice begins so the learning continues by way of continued medical education, or CME.
Here are some of the important points to remember about the importance of CME
- Learn effective medical team management skills
- Refine skills to improve overall patient care
- Meet licensing/certification requirements
- Earn membership in professional organizations
- Address real-world challenges that health care professionals face day to day
- Gain professional growth and a means to advance career status
- Stay current with the latest developments within their specialty
Who provides CME credits?
Within the United States, CME for physicians is regulated by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) and the American Osteopathic Association (AOA). There are some other organizations too which now give CME credits.
In Canada, certification is provided by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) and the College of Family Physicians Canada (CFPC).
In Europe, it’s European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME)
Some of these organizations are AAFP, NCCPA, ABIM, AAPA, AMA, ACGME, , AAMC, UEMS, CFPC, LCME, ACPE, AACOM, ABP, NRMP, MMS, SDMS, ABA etc.
Professional certification for CME planners was established by the National Commission for Certification of CME Professionals in 2008.
The Certified CME Professionals (CCMEP) Certificate is earned by a standardized exam organized by the NC-CME. It also maintains a registry of these certified professionals.
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Educational activities may be characterized as Formal Learning Activities (e.g. live planned programs, DVD or web-based content), Process Improvement CME (PI-CME) and Informal Learning Activities.
Informal learning activities include Internet Point of care research and decision making or journals that evaluate published research for mutual awareness and benefit or online professional communities.
How to get CME points online?
One can get the CME points online by the CME activities like live events, Academic Journals publications, online programs, audio, video, or other electronic media.
What are the different types of CME activities?
There are many CME activities physicians can participate in like
- Enduring Materials (Online Courses, webinars, question banks, medical journals, and more)
- Live CME
- Internet searching and learning
- Regularly scheduled series (grand rounds, tumor boards, mortality conferences, etc.)
- Test Item Writing
How to get CME credits for a conference?
You could also get the Continuing Medical Education – CME credits while attending the conferences.
Each medical specialist could claim only those hours of credit that he/she actually spent in the educational activity.
Final Words
Continuing Medical Education- Popularly known as CME Credit is the most important and in this article, we discussed the ways to get the CME credit.
