RAPID DEVELOPMENT in medicine has prompted the Medical Council of Jamaica, the body that governs medical practice here, to make continuing medical education (CME) mandatory and a top priority for physicians.
As The Gleaner reported Saturday, to oversee this major priority, the Council has set up a sub-committee - the National Council of Continuing Medical Education (NCCME), chaired by Kingston Public Hospital's senior medical officer, Dr. Trevor McCartney. As of next January, with allowance made for the necessary amendments to the relevant legislation, the Council will not renew the practising certificate of doctors who cannot show evidence of at least 10 hours of CME, in the preceding year. Currently, these certificates are automatically renewed on payment of an annual fee.
The additional hours may be earned by attending seminars, workshops, symposia, and the like, which are held throughout the year.
Some physicians may consider this a humbug but to illustrate the kind of rapid changes which medicine is up against, developments in the most common elective operation in general surgery - the removal of the gall bladder - are instructive. Doctors trained before 1995 at the University of the West Indies' Medical School would be skilled in a procedure requiring a wide incision to the patient's abdomen but the more up-to-date version of the procedure makes use of an instrument called a laparoscope to remove the organ through a small incision in the region of the navel.
Besides surgery, other sub-specialties in medicine could also accommodate adjustments in practice arising from the latest developments in the field.
It seems therefore, that continuing medical education should be made mandatory not only for medical doctors but for other professionals working in the critical area of human health.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
