Mission Statement

Purpose
The mission of the School of Medicine and Dentistry’s Office of Continuing Professional Education (CPE) is to provide high quality educational activities fostering the professional development of practicing physicians and other health care professionals. Our staff is committed to developing, organizing, and implementing quality educational activities through a collaborative process with physicians, nurses, and other allied health care professionals. CPE has set forth the following objectives:

  • Organize and sponsor activities that encourage professional inquiry and meet the needs of physicians and allied health care professionals as they develop, sustain, and improve knowledge and skills related to patient care, health professions education, and research.
  • Incorporate aspects of one or more ACGME competencies into all activities.

Content Areas and Target Audience
The University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry Office of Continuing Professional Education is an integral part of an academic medical center with tertiary and quaternary healthcare facilities and responsibilities. Under the guidance of Office leaders and our faculty activity directors, our activities comprise potentially all content areas served by our faculty, including a wide range of topics in patient care, health professions education, and medical research, as well as other aspects of professional development. CME activities are developed to address the interdisciplinary needs of primary care physicians, specialists, and subspecialists, and other health care professionals. 

Our target audience includes members of the full-time faculty at the University of Rochester Medical Center. It also includes voluntary and community-based faculty members, and other physicians and professionals in the Rochester region and, where appropriate, colleagues at the national level. We also provide access to and an awareness of quality continuing medical education activities throughout the region and nationally. We strive to maintain national standards and to utilize a balance of approaches to meet institutional requirements as well as the perceived and expressed needs of our learning audience.

Types of Activities
The CPE Office offers diverse, multifaceted educational activities, reinforcing the awareness and importance of lifelong learning, self-motivation, self-assessment, and the development of self-learning skills. Continuing medical education activities can incorporate basic science concepts, clinical practice, recent literature, and scientific research perspectives on the best currently accepted practices in clinical care, education, and research. To meet these needs, the types of activities mounted include, but are not limited to, didactic presentations and seminars, hands-on skill workshops, faculty development seminars, regularly scheduled series, and online interactive materials including videoconferencing and enduring materials.

Expected Results of the Program
We expect that participating physicians will enhance their knowledge and skill in the subject areas provided by our educational activities, ultimately applying these to improve their performance and resultant outcomes in their clinical practice, teaching, or research as relevant to the content area. Data collected from participants at the conclusion of CME activities are evaluated and analyzed to determine the effectiveness of each educational intervention. Results are shared with activity directors, faculty, and the CPE staff for the continuous improvement of CME activities.

We aspire to provide our learners with educational opportunities to reinforce the importance of lifelong learning, self-assessment, and the development of self-learning skills towards their individual improvement in multiple aspects of physician practice.