Welcome to the exciting world of Continuing Medical Education (CME) in the Division of Continuous Professional Learning (CPL) for the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta.
This division has had a long and productive history of providing ongoing education for graduate physicians. We are thankful for the creative leadership and inspiration that has preceded us.
William Osler, one of the giants in Canadian medicine, was aware of the importance of continuing education. He thought that “physicians had an obligation to keep learning about medicine from others, both through the literature and through subjecting their practices to the scrutiny of colleagues”.1 And this is exactly what we are doing. Currently, we are working with a variety of stakeholders to brainstorm innovative and scholarly programs and services, ensuring improvement in the quality of relevance of CME activities. Some internal stakeholders include the Department of Medicine, the Faculty Learning Committee, and the Physician Learning Program (PLP); reaching out provincially our external partners include the University of Calgary, The Rural Physician Action Plan, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, and The Alberta Medical Association.
In keeping with our vision of “maximizing health through optimal health professional education”, we provide accreditation for educational endeavours for MOC credits for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons; selective programs for MOCOMP credits for the College of Family Physicians of Canada; workshops for skills acquisition; a medical acupuncture program; and a mini medical school. These programs provide continuing education for the general public, other health care practitioners, family medicine physicians, and specialist physicians. Our programs will be available to both urban and rural physicians.
These programs will evolve after input from the various strategic planning sessions with the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry and our division.
We value feedback, improvement, and innovation and because of this, we invite you to contact any one of our team members as we move ahead into a new and exciting year in CME - 2011/2012. (
Contact Us).
Yours in ‘medical education’,
William Dafoe
Associate Dean, Continuous Professional Learning
Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry
University of Alberta
1 Continuing Education in the Health Professions: Improving Healthcare Through Lifelong Learning, Proceedings of a Conference Sponsored by the Josiah Macy, J. Foundation. 2008