Educación continua.

Abstract

This article views continuing education as the body of experiences that follow the individual's formal training and continue throughout his career until his withdrawal from the labor force. Its focus is on the type of continuing education required for the achievement of health for all by the year 2000. The relations between this and the other forms of education are described, and the factors associated with the growing importance of this form in health systems today are discussed. On this basis the article identifies some of the problems and limitations of continuing education, enumerates methods for determining the requirements of health personnel for this kind of education, and suggests possible future strategies, which are considered as beyond the capabilities and purview of any single institution to formulate or implement on the national scale. It therefore suggests the establishment of national systems of continuing education that will articulate the different establishments concerned in an interinstitutional organization with a unified policy, programs and budget. Only then can systematic, progressively sequenced instruction, geared to development of the skills required for specific functions and responsibilities be provided for all health occupations. The article ends with an enumeration of the desirable features of a system of this kind.