American Board of Medical Specialties and repositioning for excellence in lifelong learning: maintenance of certification

The board certification movement was founded out of a concern for the quality of care, and today, more than 85% of all physicians licensed to practice medicine in the United States have been certified by an American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) member board. There is increasing evidence of a need for continuous monitoring and promotion of quality as well as for assessment and documentation that certified medical specialists are keeping up-to-date so that their continuing competence can be documented. To help, the ABMS established a program called Maintenance of Certification, a system that includes periodic examination of knowledge and the comprehensive evaluation of practice. Maintenance of Certification includes 4 major components: professional standing, including an unrestricted license to practice medicine; lifelong learning and self-assessment; demonstrated cognitive expertise; and practice performance assessment. The efforts of the Conjoint Committee on Continuing Medical Education press continuing medical education providers to facilitate self-directed learning and directed self-learning while driving lifelong learning and assessment into the clinical practices of all physicians who seek to continuously upgrade their knowledge, skills, and behaviors to provide quality medical care.     

Medical education at Peking Union Medical College

The development and present approach to training doctors at the Peking Union Medical College, the only medical school in the country with an 8-year curriculum, is described.     

我校临床技能实践教学中心的建设实践与探索

为了适应21世纪医学教育的需要,皖南医学院构建了多学科、综合性临床技能实践教学平台;整合原属诊断学和各临床专科的临床基本技能为一门综合性课程——临床基本技能学;在教学中大量运用现代教育手段;按照“客观结构化临床考试”形式,对医学生进行临床技能训练和评估,取得了良好的效果。     

A surgeon in New York: a view of the American internship

A young surgeon describes life as an intern in New York. Well-supervised hands-on operative experience and an assured place on a training programme for most residents compensate for low pay and gruelling hours of work.     

Farm safety education in New York Mennonite schools

This intervention delivers agricultural safety information to Mennonite youth, grades 1 to 8 in their schools. The purpose is to reduce injuries in the Groffdale Conference, an Old Order Mennonite community in Yates County, New York. The New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health (NYCAMH) assisted community members to create an appropriate farm safety presentation for Mennonite children. A vital aspect of this approach is that members of the Old Order community are the educators who are delivering the information in a culturally appropriate manner. As an outside organization, it is unlikely that NYCAMH would have access to this population to directly deliver youth farm safety education.