Proposals for a scheme for continuing professional development in Pakistan

Despite the efforts over a decade by various national institutions and funding from the WHO, ¹ little progress has been made in design or implementation of a national scheme for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in Pakistan. The imperatives of such a scheme have been well perceived in the profession's circles and the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PM&DC) which, like other medical regulatory authorities round the world, consider that it is the physicians' professional responsibility to maintain and improve the quality of their practice. It is desired that all physicians regularly engage in educational activities with documented demonstration that they are fulfilling this professional obligation and it is foreseen that in the future this will be a pre-requisite for re-registration. However, it must be appreciated that strict regulatory measures are not likely to be effective in assuring quality practice but rather that the motivating factor for continuous learning should be a sense of pride in his/her performance as a physician.