For more than I0 years the U.S. Pharmacist has published continuing education articles that have been accredited by Extension Services in Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin -Madison. Since the beginning of this program over 200,000 lessons have been completed and in the last few years over 10,000 pharmacists have participated annually. This paper reports on the evaluation results of three studies conducted during this period and the pharmacists' satisfaction with this delivery system. The primary purpose of the paper is to analyze the most recent study, in which more than 90% oj the pharmacists considered the program to be a valuable learning experience, relevant to their practice and a convenient and time-saving means for professional continuing education. Most respondents planned to continue to use this method of obtaining continuing education credit and 97% indicate that they would recommend the program to a colleague. Experience from this series of accredited journal articles may be benefcial to educators in other health professions considering similar delivery systems.
Professional continuing education (CE) programs that utilize home-study delivery methods offer numerous advantages. Not only are they convenient, involving little or no travel on the part of the learner, but they are self-pacing due to the fact that the individual can restudy the material until the concepts are fully understood. In addition, with the current personnel shortage in pharmacy, home-study programs are especially beneficial to practitioners unable to find relief help in order to attend live seminars and conferences. Lastly, with an increasing number of states requiring mandatory continuing education credit for relicensure, programs completed at home can fill this need in the least demanding and, more than likely, the * Throughout this article, the terms "article" and "lesson" will be synonymous with one article in the Post-Graduate Pharmacy/Continuing Education series.