Rural and remote Australian general practitioners' educational needs in radiology.
BACKGROUND
The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) was funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care to set up a quality assurance and continuing medical education program for rural and remote general practitioners in radiology to begin in January 2001. An extensive literature search failed to uncover any previous publications on the specific educational or quality assurance needs for rural general practitioners in radiology. Broader educational needs assessments of rural general practitioners in Australia had identified radiology as an important skill for which improvement was desired.


METHODS
A national steering committee consisting of four rural general practitioners and three radiologists, with the assistance of a program manager, developed and piloted a self-administered postal questionnaire to determine the educational and quality assurance needs of rural and remote general practitioners. The questionnaire was sent to all rural and general practitioners holding a remote radiology exemption using the Health Insurance Commission database.


RESULTS
A total of 287 completed questionnaires were returned from all states in the country, except the Australian Capital Territory. The information gave a comprehensive picture of the self-reported radiology education needs of these doctors, who practice in isolation from radiologists and other specialists. The three areas in which the general practitioners were least confident in radiology were chest, cervical spine, and skull radiology. Their highest priority areas of need for education were chest radiology, film interpretation, and spinal radiology. The top preferred quality assurance activity was image review with a radiologist, followed by clinical audit, image review by peers, and measuring practice against guidelines.


RESULTS
Local ownership of education is important to successful program development and evaluation. Information obtained from the educational needs assessment was used to develop the Radiology Quality Assurance and Continuing Medical Education Program for Rural and Remote General Practitioners.
Glazebrook
R
R
Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine, PO Box 167, Kelvin Grove DC, Brisbane, Queensland 4059, Australia.
Chater
B
B
Graham
P
P
D001315:Australia; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing; D005194:Family Practice / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D008507:Medically Underserved Area; D020380:Needs Assessment; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D011871:Radiology / Q000193:education*; D019035:Rural Health Services