[Systematic aspects of problem-based, case-related, practice-oriented, professional continuing education]

Traditional CME using lectures has not been shown to improve patient care, which is the purpose of all learning in medicine. As knowledge taught mainly by lecturing is not useful for dealing with clinical problems, problem-based courses were developed to integrate general principles of basic and clinical sciences in undergraduate education. Case-based teaching is used for effective teaching of patient care. Six components were defined as a case system for clinical education: 1. Demonstration of patients; 2. free access to patients or data of patients, 3. responsible care of the patients, 4. acquisition of basic knowledge integrated in clinical problem-solving, 5. evaluation of documented work and 6. participation in patient related research. Surveys of general physicians showed that they regard a multitude of the components of the case system as desirable for learning in quality circles. Small group work can be implemented using computer supported work.