Awareness Assessment on Continuing Medical Education in Korean Orthopaedic Society / 대한정형외과학회잡지

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Awareness on continuing medical education (CME) of the Korean Orthopaedic Association (KOA) was investigated in order to augment the weak educational points of the conventional academic CME. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The web-survey was conducted in the KOA on the awareness of conventional academic or web-based CME. The questionnaire included working conditions, intimacy of informational technology, and strengths and weaknesses of academic and web-based CME. RESULTS: Among 3,427 emails sent, 168 (4.9% of effective response rate) responses were received. Of the responders, 74.4% of the responders could not attend CME frequently because of working time (35.7%) and a distance far from the working place (13.2%). The merits of academic CME included as the opportunity for considerations of other members' thoughts on some clinical matters (64.3%); however, the weak points were holding several similar conferences (60.1%) and too short time for adequate study (53.0%). They wanted that surgical procedures and tips (49.0%) to be provided in the form of lecture slides (44.6%) or movie clips (37.6%) in web-based CME. 95.5% of the responders showed positive response regarding the need for web-based CME. CONCLUSION: Results of the survey showed high needs and interests in web-based CME, which could support the weaknesses of the academic CME with less time for education and limited accessibility to CME due to time or space barriers due to their working conditions.