RETHINKING REVALIDATION
Here's what some of your colleagues had to say about our May 15 poll question, "Do you think it makes sense to have coast-to-coast standards for MD revalidation?"

• Revalidation should only occur if doctors are provided with fully funded/compensated CME opportunities. Not seminars, but time with specialists or in academic settings where relevant skills can be updated or refreshed.

• An unrestricted licence to practise medicine should be valid across Canada. That would mean a CANADIAN College of Physicians and Surgeons. Temporary and restricted licences would continue to be managed by the provincial offices of the CANADIAN College. But revalidation is an impossibility. Many GPs have, for example, long since given up certain aspects such as hospital, obstetrics and newborn care. Others do only palliative care or walk-in clinic work or psychotherapy. A better way is to do audits generated by picking up aberrations in prescribing/volume patterns — for instance, someone who prescribes inordinate amounts of narcotics or benzodiazepams or bills for 75 patients per day.

• We need a national standard. The provincial colleges are too parochial.