Records of the RCOG Continuing Medical Education / Continuing Professional Development programmes

Records of the RCOG Continuing Medical Education programme (later the Continuing Professional Development programme), including responses to the report of the Working Party on Continuing Medical Education, subject files, promotional material, roadshow and launch papers, records of the development of DIALOG, with contributors' agreements and contracts, and CPD newsletters and guides.

In July 1988 the College established a working party 'to review current post-graduate activities of the College […] and to consider the need, feasibility and the format of assessment of the individual’s maintenance of skills'. In 1991 this reported that the majority of consultants were not taking advantage of the existing educational opportunities offered by the College. It recommended that the College develop a programme of mandatory Continuing Medical Education (CME) for all its Fellows and Members in active specialist practice. This began in January 1994. The RCOG was the first of the UK Colleges to establish such a programme and also the first to offer it (from January 2000) to overseas members. The programme catered for consultants and other members of career grade staff not in training posts. The scheme was developed and overseen by the CME Committee, which held its first meeting in July 1992, and reported to the Education Board. It was administered by the Postgraduate Education Department. The first 5-year CME cycle was completed in December 1998. In 1998 CME became part of the wider sphere of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and in 1999 the CME Committee changed its name to the CPD Committee. In January 2002 the CME programme also changed its name to the CPD programme. At this date the programme was expanded to take into account not just the continuing medical education needs of obstetricians and gynaecologists, but also their broader professional development (i.e.non-clinical or non-specialist clinical activities). The Postgraduate Education Department was disbanded in October 2003 at which point the CPD Office was transferred to the Clinical Governance and Standards Department.

Permission from RCOG senior management via the College Archivist is required for access to College records less than twenty years old.

Related material held at the RCOG may be found at the following references:

RCOG/A4/25/39 President's file on the working party and on CME generally

RCOG/B35 Records of the RCOG Continuing Medical Education Committee

RCOG/M42 Working party on continuing medical education (formerly working party on continuing specialist education)