Referrals: Peer review as continuing medical education

Abstract

Modern educational theories recommend that learning from practice should be a major element in continuing education for the professions. This project used the doctors’ own referrals as a basis for learning from practice. The major intent of the project was to evaluate peer review as a method of continuing medical education. During the spring of 1990, nine local groups of general practitioners in Norway volunteered to participate in a project on peer review of referrals. The participants were provided with various instructional material to help them collect data for the group meetings, to structure the peer review of the referrals, and to evaluate the outcome of the program. The results indicated that referrals could form a suitable basis for peer review in general practice. The educational outcome of 59% of the referral discussions were evaluated as good or very good.