Continuing medical education in Turkey: Recent developments

BACKGROUND: The Turkish Association of Medicine founded a Continuing Medical Education Accreditation Committee in 1993 to evaluate and accredit scientific meetings and publications. The aims of this project were to raise the standards of meetings and to introduce compulsory revalidation and re-certification for physicians in Turkey. DISCUSSION: Since the year 1994, 2348 applications to the Continuing Medical Education board have been made (mostly for scientific meetings), and 95% of these applications have been accepted. Physicians received 139.014 credits during this time. This number is increasing every year. Meeting organisers' demand for such a kind of evaluation is increasing, because participants increasingly request it. SUMMARY: Efforts for revalidation and re-certification of physicians have not been completely successful yet. In the near future the Co-ordination Council of Medical Speciality Societies is going to oblige member associations to establish speciality boards. This will be the first step to the conventional use of Continuing Medical Education credits in occupational evaluation. Time-limited re-certification of physicians is the principal goal of Turkish Medical Association. Efforts to implement this change in legislation are being made.