engleski

Re-certification of General Practitioners in European Countries: a preliminary study

Background: The CME/CPD activities cover the longest period of the professional life of a general practitioner (GP). Issues of re-certification/re-licensing of individual GPs become more prominent over the years. The aim of the study is to investigate the criteria, rules and conditions of re-certification of GPs in Europe. Summary of work: Questionnaire, designed by the Euract CME/CPD Committee and distributed among all the Euract member states, i.e. their country representatives (N=39). Summary of results: Representatives from 29 country answered the questionnaire (74%), 13 from eastern and 16 from western European countries. A recert cerfication/re-licensing procedure for GPs exists in 18 of the 29 countries, in all eastern European countries and in 5 western ones. Mostly, the re-certification procedure is mandatory in eastern and voluntary in western countries and is required every 3-5 years. Basis for the re-certification is the collection of a strictly defined number of credit points in almost all countries. Besides the traditional activities like attendance at lectures and conferences, also e-learning, individual readings, being a trainer and adherence to guidelines are often involved and used in the re-certification process. Conclusions: In most European countries there exists re-certification system for individual GPs. In >50% this is mandatory, mainly in eastern European countries. The system is mostly based on passive learning methods and less frequently quality improvement based methods, such is work-based assessment, but still in more than half of the countries.

general practitioner; recertification; Europe

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