Overview of legal aspects of Continuing Medical Education/Continuing Professional Development in Georgia

Abstract

Improved patient safety and quality of health care are of great importance to the Continuing Medical Education/Continuing Professional Development (CME/CPD) system in Georgia. In particular, those involved in the delivery of frontline care have an inherent duty to ensure that they are competent and skilful in providing good care for patients. An eff ective system should support physicians across a number of key areas including: • Providing patient care; • Promoting health improvement, wellness, and disease prevention; • Innovating and developing the role of the physician; • Managing and using resources of the health care system. CME/CPD must become an integral part of a healthcare professional ' s practice experience. Practice must facilitate refl ection on needs and on new approaches to care and on best practice in all healthcare settings. The value of eff ective practice and learning from practice through refl ection is widely accepted. Physicians should participate in CME to develop abilities to describe and critically analyse episodes of their clinical practice, illuminate and assess their own level of competence by applying competency standards as a benchmark, identify areas of strength and those requiring development and develop practice-driven clinical learning objectives. Patient care must be based on the latest evidence. The analysis of CME/CPD systems in the medical fi eld in various European countries makes it diffi cult to directly pinpoint specifi c institutions having responsibility for providing CME/CPD. Medical professional organisations are the main suppliers and supporters of CME/CPD. Physicians themselves also play an important role in the CME/CPD process. It has become a lifelong responsibility for all doctors to be involved in CME/CPD.