CME hours required for renewal: PM&DC

Islamabad: The Pakistan Medical & dental Council has revised criteria for Continuing Medical and Dental Education (CME/CDE) for Medical and Dental Practitioners in Pakistan.  According to its notification the Management Committee of PM&DC noted that the concept of CME/CDE is gaining wide-spread international recognition and needs to be implemented in Pakistan too. This will serve as a tool for not only helping in updating a doctor’s skills but also serve to repose greater trust of the public in the medical/ dental profession.

The PM&DC as a regulatory body did attempt to start this process but there have been numerous difficulties encountered by the doctors in meeting all the requirements that were laid down for getting accredited CME/CDE points. The system needs to be modified so that it is more “user-friendly” and gradually be built up to rigorous international standards. This process may take up to 10 years but looking for shortcuts will cause it to fail.

Non-specialists will require a total of 10 CME/CDE points each year, Specialists (those with any registered postgraduate qualification) will require 15 CME/CDE points per year.Each year to be counted from 1st January to 31st December.

Once this concept of the need for CME/CDE points has been fully accepted by the profession, PM&DC can move on to include other measures of a doctor’s performance (the so called 360 degree evaluation) for getting the medical/dental registration revalidated. As UK is very near to implementing the concept of revalidation for doctors practicing in that country but the process had started well over 10 years ago, so the PM&DC shall also be aiming towards this goal keeping our country’s logistics in mind.