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1.How will cardiologists
in Europe benefit from EBAC accreditation ?
It is understood by
physicians as well as health authorities and the public that continuing
medical education is essential, in order to keep up with the rapid
changes in medicine and particularly in Cardiology. For individual
cardiologists continuous medical education (CME) requires participation
in education programmes and/or use of educational products which
provide balanced up to date high quality information. It may be
different to choose the best programmes among the large number
of different programmes and courses which are being offered. Accreditation
by EBAC ensures the participants that the programme is of high
quality and provides balanced un-biassed information. Accordingly,
cardiologists would be wise to choose EBAC accreditated programmes
for their continuing education
2. Recognition of
EBAC accreditation implies that National Cardiac Societies accept
the quality standard for CME programmes which has been accepted
similarly by other specialties in Europe. What is your recommendation
to ESC member societies ?
Indeed, similar rules
for accreditation of educational programmes should be applied
throughout Europe, in all countries, and for all specialties.
It would be difficult to explain if the rules in one country or
for one specialty would significantly differ from others. Therefore
I recommend the National Societies of Cardiology in Europe, and
the National Accreditation Boards or Accreditation Officers in
the European countries to adopt the European rules and guidelines
as developed by the European Board for Accreditation in Cardiology
(EBAC), which are fully consistent
with the rules for all medical specialists as developed by the
European Council for Continuing Medical Education ( EACCME).
3. Scientific societies, universities,
teaching hospitals and medical education institutions are eligible
to apply for EBAC accreditation for international CME events.Why
should they apply for EBAC accreditation ?
As indicated above, accreditation
by the European Board for Accreditation in Cardiology ensures
the participants that the programme which is offered, is of high
quality, balanced and un-biased. Since cardiologists throughout
Europe will gradually choose to attend accredited programmes only,
it is a wise decision of the providers (scientific societies,
universities, teaching hospitals and others) to request accreditation
of their programmes.
It should be appreciated that accreditation will not be given
to programmes which appear to be not up to date, not balanced
or biased towards specific procedures, drugs or devices. Information
to this extend by EBAC will help the organizers to improve the
quality of their programme in order to obtain the appropriate
accreditation.
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