The study of medicine is a lifelong process, with continuing medical education being an integral component of the continuum. The School of Medicine has supported this learning endeavor through the operation of the Continuing Medical Education (CME) program, which has been fully accredited since 1973. In 2016, the program achieved accreditation by the Joint Accreditation for Interprofessional Continuing Education to provide credit not only for physicians but for pharmacists and nurses as well. Credit for optometrists was added in 2020. The program’s mission is to collaborate with teams of health-care professionals as well as individual members of health-care teams to provide opportunities for educational renewal and advancement to facilitate lifelong learning, the maintenance of professional competencies, and the enhancement of knowledge and skills to improve performance, clinical care and patient outcomes.

Pursuant to this mission, the objectives of the CME program include the following:

• Enable the acquisition of new knowledge and skills for the delivery of quality patient care.
• Translate the results of research into clinical diagnosis and treatment for health-care practitioners.
• Apply educational approaches in support of continuous quality improvement and patient safety in health-care delivery.
• Integrate clinical outcome measures into the educational process.
• Assist with adaptation to changing health-care delivery environments.
• Support the development of faculty as postgraduate medical educators and leaders.
• Evaluate and refine educational activities.
• Support health-care professionals in meeting state and specialty recertification and relicensure requirements.

Each year, the CME department awards credit for more than 160 symposia and more than 150 recurring academic rounds and conferences as well as self-directed learning activities. About 9,000 registrants participate in these activities annually, and they receive more than 110,000 hours of instruction. CME Online provides educational programs via the internet. Since it began in 2000, the CME online program has grown to include more than 150 hours of available CME credit.