Continuing medical education (CME) in India

Excerpt: Delays in legislation slow the progress of CME in India.
http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/2/CME0204?en/print.html

In 2013, the Medical Council of India (MCI) established a code of ethics stating that members should complete 30 hours of CME every five years in order to re-register as doctors, but only about 20% of India’s doctors follow this as it is not legally binding. Despite the lack of legal incentive for doctors to attend regular refresher courses, CME has been catching up in India over the past three years partly due to the efforts of regional medical associations. The Delhi Medical Council, which represents 24 000 doctors in the capital, made it mandatory two years ago for members to complete 100 hours of CME every five years before they can re-register as doctors. CME programmes have been held in several other places…but doctors in many rural areas still miss out as they have little or no access to such courses. Because of low literacy levels and poor awareness of good medical practice at the community level, there is little pressure from patients to motivate doctors to participate in CME programmes, despite what he referred to as the “dismal quality” of the medical service.

CMEPEDIA aims to increase the penetration of quality controlled CME modules for every health care professional in India and eventually to collaborate with professional bodies to work on an equivalency framework to accept international accreditation in India and vice versa. As most of the CME modules will be online, they will be accessible to health care professionals in remote and rural areas too.