Should the field of continuing medical education (CME) be renamed and redirected as continuing physician professional development (CPPD)? What if our discipline of CME better focused on the continuum of the professional development of a physician throughout a lifetime? Forty years ago, in 1959, the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates urged that the term "continuing medical education (CME)" replace the term then in use, "postgraduate medical education." We believe that the case can now be made for another shift in our vocabulary, to recognize the process of ongoing professional development of physicians. In September 1999, we renamed our AMA Division of CME as the "Division of Continuing Physician Professional Development."
Why should we even consider a departure from the comfortable and conventional term "CME," now embodied in the current conceptualization of the three phases of medical education, undergraduate, graduate, and continuing? The answer is, we think, straightforward. Words are important, and there is an urgent need for CME to evolve in a new direction and thence to new relevance to practicing physicians. It will also provide a clear signal to everyone involved in our huge enterprise. At the AMA, we continually answer questions that reflect a belief that only clinical sub-jects are appropriate for CME designated for AMA Physician's Recognition Award (AMA PRA) credit. Recent questions directed to us concerned the appropriateness of designation of AMA PRA credit for courses on business issues for physician managers and on education for primary care physicians on important issues of cultural diversity in patient care. The shared AMA and Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) definition of CME has always permitted such activities and states quite directly: CME consists of educational activities that serve to maintain, develop, or increase the knowledge, skills, and professional performance and relationships a physician uses to provide services for patients, the public, or the profession⦠1 Adopted in 1982 by the AMA House of Delegates, this broad definition is rarely interpreted as broadly as it is written. We do not believe that a new definition for the term CPPD is needed. But we do believe that renaming the entire process as CPPD better reflects the direction in which learning for the physician practice years must move. It indeed must be conceived of as continuous education along a lifetime of physician maturation and development.
The concept of continuing professional development (CPD) is not new and has gained acceptance throughout the world. Use of the eponym "CPD" gained favor in the United Kingdom in 1993 when it was formally proposed by a government-sponsored Standing Committee on Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education (SCOPME), chaired by Dr. (Dame) Barbara Clayton. SCOPME's working paper was entitled