The continuing professional development of the Canadian Society of Clinical Chemists and the Canadian Academy of Clinical Biochemists.

The Canadian Society of Clinical Chemists (CSCC) and the Canadian Academy of Clinical Biochemistry (CACB) have recently implemented a new professional development program for its 400 members. The program's goals are: to evaluate and recognize professional development based on self-determined needs, interests, and learning preferences; and to ensure that qualified professionals directing clinical biochemistry laboratories have adequate basic and current knowledge to function competently in their profession. Involvement in the program is currently voluntary and based on a 3-year cycle during which time participants must earn a minimum of 150 credits from at least 3 of 8 categories' learning activities. Of these activities: four are related to updating knowledge (Formal Group Learning related to Laboratory Medicine, Other Formal Group Learning, Self-Directed Learning, Self-Assessment); three are related to the maintenance and implementation of practice skills (Service Associated Learning, Teaching, Change in Practice); and one is related to the advancement of knowledge (Publications and Presentations). One credit is defined as one hour of continuing professional development activity. At the end of each year, members document their activities by submitting a 4 page Annual Summary of Activities (ASA) form. The cost of coordinating the program is minimal as it is administered by a steering committee and smaller working committees, all of whom are voluntary. A basic assumption of our program is that self-management of professional development (PD) is an important prerequisite and indicator of maintenance of competence. By recognizing learning through a number of activities and outcomes, it is anticipated that our program will promote an overall improvement in the quality of Laboratory Medicine throughout Canada.

Antigenic stability of fimbriae of Bacteroides nodosus.

Successful vaccination of sheep against footrot and attempts to eradicate the disease depend on there being a limit to the antigenic diversity of the causative bacterium, Bacteroides nodosus. Fimbrial antigenic variation was therefore investigated in vivo, both under conditions of chronic infection and under the pressure of a vaccine-induced immune response, to ascertain whether this represented an obstacle to such goals. Material was available from 5 experiments and although B. nodosus appeared to have undergone changes in its fimbrial antigens in one of these, the possibility that superinfection was responsible for the variation detected could not be ruled out because all sheep in this case were maintained at pasture. Overall, the results provided no evidence of fimbrial antigenic shift in B. nodosus in vivo and in conclusion, the survival of the organism in the sheep's foot, both in long-term natural infection and following vaccination, must therefore be related to factors other than the ability to undergo antigenic variation in order to evade the host's immune response.