Continuing Professional Development for Doctors in Pakistan is need of the hour

Abstract

In Pakistan, health professionals get their professional undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications after thorough training and assessment criteria as defined by their respective national regulatory bodies. These qualifications help them get registered and get a license for clinical practice in their respective domains. Any registrations and licenses are renewed by paying the prescribed fee without any requirements for reassessment or recertifications. Over the last few decades, health sciences have shown rapid advancements with the invention of new drugs and technologies. Due to this exponential increase in knowledge, no practitioner can hope to remain competent for more than a few years after graduation without a program of active learning. As such, a well-structured and regulated program of lifelong learning must be followed by all health professionals. To keep health professionals abreast with these changes and to ensure the maintenance of certain minimum competencies, there is a need for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) to be implemented at the national level with strict regulatory compliance. According to World Federation for Medical Education (World Federation for Medical Education, 2015), Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is a process of education and training commencing after completion of basic and postgraduate medical education, thereafter, continuing as long as the health professional is engaged in professional activities. CPD mainly implies self-directed and practice-based learning activities in addition to supervised education, and rarely involves supervised training for an extended period of time. The terms ‘Continuing Medical Education (CME)’ and ‘Continuing Professional Development (CPD)’ are often used synonymously.