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Innovative continuing medical education offered Penn State Geisinger and Hershey By Kristine Lalley
Dr. Luanne E. Thorndyke is assistant dean for continuing education and assistant professor, General Internal Medicine.	For the medical professional, continuing education courses are often a routine part of the licensure requirements that allow the practitioner to better meet the needs of patients while keeping up with mandatory training to maintain professional accreditation. As far as innovation is concerned, continuing medical education (CME) is often perceived by medical professionals as being a step behind in addressing the real challenges and emerging issues they face.   At the Penn State Geisinger Health System and The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, innovation is the hallmark of courses offered to medical professionals. They can choose from a variety of educational programs that offer new and responsive approaches to important current issues. The programs offered reflect emerging issues that medical professionals must understand so they can translate their new knowledge to on-the-job situations they commonly encounter. Penn State’s Hershey Medical Center is responding to these rapid changes in medicine by diversifying its offerings and making them available to a wider learning audience through the increased use of distance technologies and by enhancing group and team learning situations.   The Penn State Geisinger Health System and the Hershey Medical Center formally merged as a single delivery unit in July 1997. The merger is unique in that it includes a nonprofit insurance organization, a large group practice and a school of medicine. The 200,000-member Penn State Geisinger Health Plan, formerly the Geisinger Health Plan, is the nation’s largest rural health maintenance organization. The ownership and operation of Penn State’s College of Medicine remains with Penn State, and the College of Medicine’s education and research enterprise is now closely tied to and supported by the new health care system.   At Hershey Medical Center, more than 500 continuing education courses are offered each year to 40,000 to 45,000 medical professionals. According to Dr. Dennis R. Lott, director of continuing education in the College of Medicine at the Hershey Medical Center, there are several new programs being offered this year that respond to the rapidly changing continuing education needs of the medical profession.   To answer questions regarding Penn State’s new partnership with Geisinger, the Penn State Geisinger Health System teamed up with the Hershey Medical Center to educate physicians about the integration of the two groups. One hundred doctors attended 16 hours of instruction about the collaboration, which included several guest speakers who covered a wide range of topics important to a successful health care system merger.   Another new program addresses the growing managed care environment and its impact on physicians. The five-session course offered via satellite to 14 sites in Pennsylvania focuses on changing patterns of practice among physicians in a managed care system. Faculty hailed from both the Penn State Geisinger Health System and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.   The annual “Ages and Stages” women’s health conference provides current information about women’s health issues from a multidisciplinary perspective, which includes medicine, nursing, nutrition and psychosocial aspects.   “There is much interest today in the new findings from women’s health research, in areas like osteoporosis, breast cancer and cardiovascular disease,” Lott said.   Because rural physicians often lack access to up-to-date information, technology and procedures, a physician-in-residence program is now being offered which enables rural doctors in Pennsylvania to shadow colleagues at the Hershey Medical Center. In this mini-residency program, the participants learn new techniques on the treatment of such health issues as intensive-care medicine, asthma and cardiac diseases and return to their practices better informed about current technology and treatments, according to Lott.   Dr. Luanne E. Thorndyke, assistant dean for continuing education and assistant professor, General Internal Medicine, added that the physician-in-residence program has been very well received by medical professionals in the rural communities served by the health system.   “The program allows isolated generalists to be up-to-date in medical practices,” she said. “The one-on-one mentorship offered through the program is particularly effective.”   Thorndyke also mentioned that the College of Medicine has succeeded in diversifying its continuing education offerings. She explained that physicians no longer exclusively attend a daylong course in the hospital, because the programs are presented in a variety of formats, from conferences to skill workshops, to mentorships and computer-based training.   “Despite the incredible diversity of continuing medical education offerings, there will always be a place for traditional conferences which bring professionals together to learn. Such conferences benefit professionals in ways that are over and above lectures or handouts. There is a need for group learning and discussion which happens naturally in a conference setting,” Thorndyke said.   Information technologies and distance education also have significantly impacted the way medical professionals receive continuing education. A course called SESATS—Self-Education/Self-Assessment in Thoracic Surgery—offers videotaped instruction, along with a booklet and CD-ROM for board certification in thoracic surgery. Developed by Dr. David Campbell, professor of surgery, the course allows physicians to receive certification upon completion of 35 hours of continuing medical education credit and after completing a test, all at a distance.   There also is a database available for medical professionals to consult about topics such as pediatric immunization, according to Lott. In addition, Web-based instruction is offered for CME credit and is particularly useful for rural isolated physicians in need of up-to-date information, he added.   A television call-in show, where physicians from various specialties field questions on community health issues from citizens across the Commonwealth, is being developed by faculty and should have its first broadcast sometime in 1999, Lott noted.   For more information about the Hershey Medical Center’s Continuing Education programs, contact Dr. Dennis R. Lott at (717) 531-6483, E-mail: drl1@psu.edu.   More information about Penn State’s medical outreach activities will be included in the next issue of Penn State Outreach magazine. This issue will feature information about the Rural Women’s Health Initiative, an outreach program co-sponsored by Penn State’s College of Medicine at The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, the College of Health and Human Development, the College of Agricultural Sciences and Penn State Geisinger Health System, in collaboration with Continuing Education and Cooperative Extension.