General practitioners and online continuing professional education: Projected understandings

Continuing professional education seems to be particularly suited to the online environment with opportunities to communicate anywhere anytime. This appears to be convenient and time efficient for the busy working professional. The views of practising professionals were sought and form the basis of this paper. Primary care physicians at two locations, who actively pursue continuing education, discuss the role of information technology in their daily professional practice and give their views about online education. This professional group is a good example of how a particular interaction style is significant to the collective cultural mores of a group. The paper concludes that these group preferences need to be taken into account when designing continuing education and some suggestions are made for design.