The assessment of continuing medical education

There is a close link between audit of clinical competence and audit of continuing medical education. Some of the earlier assumptions about the organisation of continuing medical education need to be reviewed. The increasing provision of resources for continuing medical education by the NHS means that added safeguards are necessary to ensure that professional standards are not subordinated to service exigencies. The introduction of higher educational methodology into continuing medical education should be critically examined with awareness of the limitations and controversies concerning many methods of teaching and assessing educational outcome. The methodology of higher education may need to be substantially modified to suit the uniqueness of the clinical process and the problems of altering the behaviour of experienced and practising doctors. Criticism of behaviourist educational methods should be based on an understanding and knowledge of these methods. A new functional clinical educational domain is proposed which links educational methods with the clinical application of new learning.