[Formulation of a conceptual framework for continuing education in health]

There can now be no doubt about the need for far-reaching changes in services to achieve the goal of Health for All by the Year 2000 and for recognition of the importance of the recasting of schemes for the training and development of health personnel. From this standpoint, continuing education can contribute much to the accomplishment of these two purposes. The development of the concept of continuing education and its practical application in the health systems of Latin America and the Caribbean are discussed, and the various stages that continuing education has passed through in the course of two decades are described. It began as a teaching-learning process entered upon at the end of basic education to bring up to date and improve the qualifications of the individual and group. In 1979, in keeping with the basic principles of adult education, it came to be seen as a process that must continue during adult life and be directed at individual self-management. Finally, since 1982, continuing education has been understood as a comprehensive, dynamic and participative process geared to the needs of the individual and the health team. Thus continuing education is framed in the context of practicing and working in the health field. The authors then examine basic proposals on education and health. They say that the education process is determined by the economic process of the society, which in turn is interested in education insofar as it needs to use the labor of each of its members for educational purposes. To establish the role of education in the health services, they consider the specific kind of society in which this relationship to be pursued. Finally, it is suggested that education practice in the health field will become relevant if it includes a process for the critical understanding of a given real situation. Continuing education would then have to take into account this premise in order to fulfill its guiding function in the training and development of health manpower.