Circular No. 1970, 6th March 2001

President's Message - Register of "CME-certified General Practitioners"

Since the launch of the HKDU CME programme in July 2000, seven Sunday Afternoon CME Symposiums had been held and they were all fully booked. I am much impressed by the extremely high attendance rate of the Symposiums. Many thanks to members for their participation and support of voluntary CME! Credits are due to the Committee on Quality Assurance and CME, and the staff who work overtime on Sundays.

In my article "CME for all?" published in the April 1999 issue of EDANEWS, we suggested to increase the incentive for our colleagues to attend CME activities. Since then, there has been lots of discussion on voluntary and compulsory CME for all doctors. Up till now, the Medical Council of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Medical Association(HKMA), the Association of Licentiates of Medical Council of Hong Kong(ALMCHK), Practising Estate Doctors Association and our Union all agreed with the principle of Voluntary CME for all doctors and that CME should not be linked with annual practising certificates for doctors. In the meetings with HKMA and members of the Medical Subsector, the Second LegCo Election Committee of HKSAR, Dr. Yeoh Eng-kiong, the Secretary for Health and Welfare, had said clearly that it was up to the profession to decide whether CME should be voluntary or mandatory.

In the last policy meeting of the Medical Council held on 7th February 2001, it was proposed to set up a "Register for CME-certified General Practitioners". I fully support this proposal as this is exactly what I have proposed in the article - "CME for all?". I opined that such Register for CME-certified General Practitioners should be incorporated into the General Register. This mechanism is fair and simple, and is similar to the Register for Specialists. It aims to encourage our colleagues to upgrade our knowledge in medicine regularly. Recently, the names of a certain number of colleagues were removed from the Specialist Register for not fulfilling the CME requirements laid down by the Academy of Medicine. The "Register for CME-certified General Practitioners" will be processed and regulated similarly. Those who cannot meet the CME requirements laid down by the Medical Council would not be admitted to such Register, or their names will be removed from such Register if they cannot meet the CME requirements later on.

Apart from the proposed requirement of a minimum of 90 CME points in a 3 year cycle, the CME certification system of the Medical Council is similar to that of our Union and HKMA. In addition to the General Register and Specialist Register, no decision had been made as to whether a separate register for “CME-certified General Practitioners” should be set up in the Medical Council. Those who support a separate register believe that colleagues under such register will feel much honoured and a little bit different from those who are not and therefore they will be more eager to learn. With the same token, I am against such a separate register because it would induce more "segregation" among our colleagues. There will be classes of doctors like Non CME-certified General Practitioners, CME-certified General Practitioners, Specialists in Family Medicine and Specialists in other fields of medicine. It will damage the unity of the Profession in future. I would rather favour the insertion of title like "CME-certified General Practitioner" after the name of those qualified colleagues in the General Register. However, whether there should be a separate register for "CME-certified General Practitioners" should best be decided by the whole medical profession.

It was further suggested in the Medical Council that the title "CME-certified General Practitioner" would be allowed to be printed in the doctors’ stationery and be embossed in their annual practising certificates. This mechanism is very much similar to that for Specialist Register. Colleagues can use this ‘title’ so long as they can keep up with the required CME points.

The job of the Medical Council is to vet medical bodies which can provide high quality CME programme and have a proper system of CME accreditation for their members. On the recommendation of these qualified medical bodies, the Medical Council would register those qualified colleagues into such Register.

The last important job that we have to accomplish is to set up a ‘Central Registry’ for various associations so that we can come up with only ONE System of CME Accreditation for all general practitioners. Our Union, HKMA, ALMCHK and other bodies would try to work this out so that at the end of the day: 　

  1. A doctor can freely register for CME with any medical body in which he is a member. According to the CME guidelines of individual medical body, the doctor can receive CME certification from each of these bodies if he has met CME requirement of each of these medical bodies; for example, he can have certification from HKDU, HKMA etc. on CME;
  2. On the other hand, the Medical Council would only grant the title of "CME-certified General Practitioner" to a doctor on the recommendation of ONE qualified medical body to make sure that there is no duplicated calculation of CME activities that particular doctor has attended to.

We have set up a task force, composed of Drs. Lam Ying Ming, She Siu Yam, Tang Kuen Yan, Tang Yiu Tin, Yuen Ka Wai and myself, to work on the future ‘Central Registry’. Suggestions from members are most welcome! With your generous help, I hope we can coordinate and work towards the ultimate goal of giving due recognition to those colleagues who have spent their time and effort to undertake Continuing Medical Education.　

Dr. Yeung Chiu Fat Henry　

會長訊息－「持有CME證書的全科醫生」名冊

自2000年7月展開聯會CME活動以來，已舉辦過七次週日下午CME研討會，每次均座無虛設，響應之熱烈令我深為感動。衷心感謝會員的參與和對自發性CME的支持。這些該歸功於品質保證與CME小組和週末超時工作的秘書處同寅。　

1999年4月份EDANEWS拙文「全體參與CME？」中，我們提議要有獎賞去鼓勵醫生參與CME活動，隨後關於強迫性與自發性CME的討論甚為廣泛。直至現在為止，醫委會、香港醫學會、醫委會執照醫生協會、公共屋邨執業西醫協會及西醫聯會均一致贊同自發性CME的原則及CME不該與每年續取行醫證掛勾。在與香港醫學會和第二屆立法會大選舉團的醫學界成員會面時，衛生福利局局長楊永強醫生曾清晰地說明該讓醫學界自行決定CME是否強制施行。　　　

2001年2月7日最近一次醫委會會議中，有人建議設立「持有CME證書的全科醫生名冊」。我全力支持此建議，因為這正是拙文「全體參與CME？」中我的建議。我提議把這個名冊擺放入總名冊中，它的運作簡單而公平，與專科醫生名冊相似。目標是鼓勵同業持久地更新醫療知識。最近一些同業因未達到專科學院對CME訂立的標準而被從專科醫生名冊中除名。同樣地不能達到醫委會訂下的CME標準便不能納入這名冊，而已在名冊者也同樣會被除名。

醫委會的CME證書制度其實與西醫聯會及香港醫學會所用的相同，只是多了每三年至少取得90分的要求。至於應否另外加設「持有CME證書的全科醫生名冊」，醫委會仍未作決定。支持另設名冊者相信同業會以被列入名冊為榮、與眾不同而更勤奮學習。但同樣地我反對這獨立名冊，怕它把同業們分作等級。將來會有各等級的醫生如非持有CME證書的全科醫生，持有CME證書的全科醫生，家庭醫學專科醫生和其他分科的專科醫生。這樣會更分化整個醫學界。反之我會較喜歡在該名冊中已獲資格的醫生名背後加一個銜頭像「持有CME證書的全科醫生」。然而另設立名冊與否還是讓全體同僚去決定吧。

醫委會更有提議准許醫生在信箋上印上「持有CME證書的全科醫生」銜頭，亦會替他們把'銜頭'印在週年行醫證書上。這與專科醫生名冊的做法相似，只要有足夠的CME分數，'銜頭'可繼續使用。

醫委會的工作是審核醫學組織能否提供高質素的CME活動和擁有恰當頒發分數給予會員的制度。醫委會便根據這些合資格醫學組織的推介，把合資格的醫生列入這名冊中。

最後一件重要工作是替所有醫學團體設立一個'中央登記處'，好讓能產生一個頒發CME證書予全科醫生的統一制度。西醫聯會、香港醫學會、醫委會執照醫生協會及其他團體會嘗試這樣做，力求達到：　

  1. 醫生能自由選擇所屬組織作為登記CME機構。根據個別組織的CME指引，只要達到各會CME的起碼要求，他便可以從每個組織取得證書；例如他可以拿HKDU CME證書，HKMA CME證書等等。
  2. 另一方面，為免把同一CME活動重覆計算，於頒發「持有CME證書的全科醫生」銜頭時，醫委會只聽從一個合資格醫學組織的推介。

本會為了建立將來'中央登記處'而成立了行動小組；成員是林英明，佘兆蔭，鄧權恩，鄧堯天，袁嘉偉等醫生和本人。歡迎大家提出建議！我希望大家幫忙，同心協力，為成功達到給予勤奮作持續教育的同業該有的承認而努力。　

楊超發醫生

C1670o2001/Othercir(6)