‘How Doctors Keep Up’

Greenberg correctly points out that indeed some are given undeserved continuing medical education (CME) credits. In all fairness, it must be pointed out that given the cost for attending any medical meeting, it would be foolish for any professional not to try to get his money’s worth of education. It is certainly utopian for anyone to believe that there exists a foolproof system to guarantee competence. With the increasing sophistication and specialization in medicine, it is nearly impossible to devise a reliable test to relicense each physician periodically. The cost for such an examination will be prohibitive, both for the examiners and the time required of the examinees.

Most of our hospitals do offer accredited CME programs for their staff physicians, and I don’t recall having seen many signing in without attending the meetings. As an outsider, Greenberg probably missed a major benefit of medical meetings--to allow the physicians from various parts of the world to interact with one another and with the leading authorities in their fields of specialization.

Perhaps the public may best judge a physician’s competence by his hospital affiliations, since each hospital does have its own mechanism to monitor the competence of its staff. Yes, Mr. Greenberg, we do live in an imperfect world. But to demand that all physicians take a relicensing exam periodically is no more logical or relevant than for Mr. Greenberg to pass an English 101 exam every other year.

JOHN T. CHIU, M.D.

Chairperson

Communications Committee

Orange County Medical Assn.