Last night I presented a lecture at St. Mary's Hospital. It was well attended and I appreciated the participation of the audience. It felt good to be communicating some clinical information that could make an impact in patient care. Afterwards, three of the Kenyan nurses came forward to have me sign their attendance book.
I took a few minutes to scan their book. It was a log book issued by the Kenya Nursing Council. It set forth the guidelines of mandatory participation in Continuing Professional Development (CPD). To maintain their license they must complete at least 20 hours of CPD per year. This is good. To maintain competence, health care workers need to have on-going CPD; they need to be adult learners.
Currently there are no requirements in Kenya by the Kenya Medical Practioners Board for any CPD to maintain licensure. This means that once a doctor completes his Internship he could practice for 30 years without ever attending another educational meeting. This is scary. Fortunately, most physicians do seek out some CPD. However, it is not enough.
Interestingly, I just made a proposal to the hospital administration at St. Mary's Hospital in regards to CPD for the doctors. I proposed that each physician must complete 25 hours per year to maintain employment at St. Mary's Hopsital (compared to the 50 hours per year that I must complete to maintain my board certification in Family Medicine). In that proposal, I also made these comments:
"It is a priority at St. Mary's Mission Hospital to provide low cost excellent health care to the people of Kenya. With the volume, variety, and complexity of patients and diagnoses that are seen and made here there is a large amount of medical knowledge that must be mastered and maintained. With the many advancements in medical science it is imperative that practicing providers of medical care keep their medical skills sharp and current."
I further stated:
"Required Continuing Professional Development is quickly becoming the norm worldwide for health care providers to maintain license to practice. Currently the Ministry of Health and the Kenya Board of Medical Practioners are considering implementing this CPD requirement. It is our position that St. Mary's Mission Hospital should set the standard of excellence in this area by voluntarily instituting a programme of CPD for its clinical providers."
Pray that the leadership of the hospital will be bold in accepting and implementing the proposal of required CPD.
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