Quality-controlled education in epileptology: experiences from Europe and possible developments for other regions

As a consequence of the political system shift in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, the new International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Commission on European Affairs (CEA) had to face the task of ensuring an equally good quality of epilepsy care across the whole region. A high standard of epileptologic education being the most important precondition for that, the decision was taken to make quality-controlled education a first priority. To reach this aim, an "European Epilepsy Academy" (Eurepa) was founded in 1996. Its activities comprise organization of its own educational courses, certification of other educational courses, responsibility for education at European Congresses, training of trainers in epilepsy (now 45 trainers from 27 countries), adoption of a curriculum to become a certified European epileptologist, establishment of a multinational educational network, and a "Website Academy" as a forum for discussion. In the first two years of its activity, the Academy received financial support from the ILAE (money generated by the European Congresses) but has since been self-supporting, with income from membership fees, participation fees at courses, and moderate support from pharmaceutical companies. The interest in the Academy is high, especially in those parts of Europe where epileptology was until recently not well developed. This should encourage other regional ILAE commissions to implement similar strategies, even if different regional structures will require variable regional approaches. Thus, in regions with long distances, it may be useful to include methods of distant learning and other specific features.