Continuing medical education habits of US women physicians

To quantify the time women physicians spend on continuing medical education (CME) in total and by type of activity and to assess the impact of various demographic and professional characteristics on CME practices.

We analyzed CME habits among 4501 female physicians (a 59% response rate) using a 1994 national questionnaire-based survey, the Women Physicians' Health Study.

US women physicians reported spending a monthly mean of 12.5 hours on CME, including 5.1 hours reading medical journals, 3.1 reading medical textbooks, 3.7 attending live CME lectures, 0.7 listening to CME audio tapes, and 0.4 watching medical television or videos. They also spent 0.9 hours per month learning from lay health media. Physicians with subspecialty training, medical school employment, and a non-US birthplace reported significantly (p < 0.05) more CME hours; age, ethnicity, region, specialty type, practice locale, career satisfaction, and board certification did not significantly predict reported CME hours.

US women physicians reported spending an average of one-half hour each work day on CME, including about one hour per week reading medical journals, their most commonly reported CME activity.