Continuing medical education practices of community-based and university-affiliated anaesthetists in Ontario

To remedy the lack of information about the continuing medical education (CME) practices of anaesthetists, we designed a survey to define and compare the CME activities of specialist anaesthetists in community-based and university-affiliated practices: 463 members of the Canadian Anaesthetists' Society in the Province of Ontario (263 community-based and 200 university-affiliated (University of Toronto) anaesthetists). Data from 304 (65.6%) respondents (172 community-based and 132 university-affiliated anaesthetists) were analyzed by non-parametric analysis (statistical significance P < 0.05). Most respondents spent between two to four hours per week on CME activities. Journal reading was the most commonly used method to obtain CME and was perceived to be the most efficient of the methods surveyed (P < 0.05). Formal teaching, including seminars, workshops, and annual society meetings, although the second most commonly used technique to obtain CME, was considered as effective as journal reading. Instructional media techniques were the least commonly used and considered the least effective (P < 0.05). Most community-based and university-affiliated anaesthetists obtained CME by a variety of techniques; of all respondents, 77% have no formal method of assessing their learning needs and 88% would consider participation in a formalized learning needs assessment programme.