Individualized CME learning opportunities. A critical role for the community hospital

This paper has attempted to define the critical role that community hospitals can play in continuing medical education, a type of education that historically has been oriented toward large group instruction, often at the expense of individualized learing. Professional societies and organizations, major medical faculties, and educational programs sponsored by various groups may well be the basic structures for providing high-quality new information. However, rarely do presentations by these groups involve reclarification, synthesis, and examination of present knowledge and behavior, nor do they typically allow physicians to share their experiences or learn by doing--all of which have great importance to the learning habits of practicing physicians. The local medical community, through use of an instructional format like the one outlined, may be able to fill this crucial gap.