2nd EPA Faculty Workshop

Following the success of the 1st EPA Academia Faculty Workshop held in November 2010, the EPA Committee on Education decided to continue this important initiative aimed at providing effective and high quality CME courses during the annual European Congress of Psychiatry. Therefore, the 2nd EPA Academia Faculty Workshop took place on 14 October 2011 in the EPA Headquarters in Strasbourg (France), and gathered in a friendly and constructive atmosphere the directors and co-directors of the EPA CME courses that will be organised at the 20th European Congress of Psychiatry in Prague March 2012.

As in the last year, the workshop was effectively facilitated by Dr. Rosie Lusznat and Prof. Colin Coles from the University of Winchester (United Kingdom). The main objective of the 2nd Faculty Workshop was to elaborate on how to increase the effectiveness of the CME courses evaluation process, including evaluation of a course relevance to its participants’ needs, estimating value created by the course, establishing ranking of EPA CME courses, further improving courses quality through peer review, etc.

As a result of vivid discussions, some important proposals were made, which will be submitted to the EPA Committee on Education for approval and will further integrate the EPA CME Guidelines.

1st EPA Faculty Workshop

The 1st EPA Academia Faculty Workshop entitled “Delivering effective and high quality CME courses” took place on 13 November 2010 in the EPA Headquarters in Strasbourg, France.

The Faculty Workshop was aimed at enhancing the effectiveness and acceptability of the EPA CME courses, exchanging good practices in planning and running the courses, and utilising existing expertise within the peer group.

The workshop lasted one full day and was attended by 14 participants, comprising directors and co-directors of the EPA CME courses organised during the 19th European Congress of Psychiatry in Vienna, Austria, 12-15 March 2011, as well as Prof. Henning Sass, EPA Secretary for Education, and Dr. Amit Malik, member of the EPA Committee on Education.

Two moderators, Dr. Rosie Lusznat and Prof. Colin Coles from the University of Winchester (United Kingdom), facilitated the exchange of good practices between the workshop participants. The topics of the greatest interest to the course directors were discussed, including a framework for choosing the most appropriate educational model of teaching, process of planning and running a course, various teaching approaches and methods, as well as the current course description model and course evaluation system.

As a result of these very fruitful interactions, some guidelines were proposed aiming at harmonising the format of the EPA CME courses and reinforcing the process of their selection. Once approved by the EPA Committee on Education, these guidelines will be applied with effect from the Academia CME programme of the 20th European Congress of Psychiatry Prague 2012.