Accreditation rules safeguard continuing medical education from commercial influence

Meixel et al1 make several misleading and unsupported claims about continuing medical education (CME) in their opinion piece. The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) exists to set and monitor the standards that, among other goals, ensure that educational programmes offered by organisations that we accredit are independent and free of commercial bias. The authors claim that ‘Continuing medical education (CME) courses are an important part of promotion prior to drug approval and have become a key marketing tool for increasing clinician receptivity to new products’, but provide no supporting evidence. Promotion or marketing has no place in accredited CME. Accredited education is designed to offer physicians and healthcare teams a protected space to learn, teach, discuss emerging science and debate ethical and controversial issues without commercial influence. If the authors were referring only to non-accredited CME, then they should so specify. The viewpoint also suggests...
Source: Journal of Medical Ethics - Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Tags: Sexual health, Competing interests (ethics), Postgraduate, Education, medical Current controversy Source Type: research