[Continuing medical education in Germany--the northrhenian experience]

For Germany there exist only very little data concerning the practice of continuous medical education (CME). The introduction of the CME certificate has made it possible to gather data about the CME activities and their evaluation which are presented here for the northrhenian chamber of physicians.

In 2002 the northrhenian academy for CME has certified more than 5500 CME activities and more than 2000 maintenance-of-quality group activities. In addition the evaluation forms of the first 4486 consecutive participants have been evaluated,including those of the northrhenian CME congress on the isle of Norderney.

94 % of the participants had received their license between 1 and 30 years ago and 81 % attended > or = 1 CME activity per month. Currently there exist only very few digital media certified for CME, which is dominated by oral presentations of which 85 % have gained > or = 2 points for the certificate (150 points in 3 years). General practitioners and internists together represented nearly 40 % of the participants, the others represent a broad spectrum of specialties. Topics and presentation were rated as of high quality and clinical relevance, which was also true for sponsored CME.

Certified CME is currently dominated by oral presentations which mostly take place outside the working hours and which are rated as of high quality and clinical relevance.