Continuing Education: An Answer to Professional Obsolescence

As many of you are probably well aware, the concept of mandatory continuing education as a requirement for practicing health professionals is currently being debated or enacted by many licensing bodies and professional organizations. This mandatory continuing education debate is not only a heated issue here in Canada and the United States, but is also an extremely important issue in many other highly developed industrialized nations of the world. It is quite safe to assume that by the end of this century most, if not all, licensed health professionals will have a mandatory continuing education requirement. What the author intends to do in this analysis is first present a brief definition of continuing education, discuss some salient variables as they relate to continuing education, and finally discuss professionalism and professional obsolescence.