Use of Massive Online Open Courses as a Potential Resource to Provide Continuing Medical Education in Pakistan

The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PM&DC) has made Continuing Medical Education (CME) mandatory for doctors, from 2015 onwards. A minimum of 15 credit hours of CME per year for general practitioners and 30 credit hours for specialist doctors have been made mandatory for renewal of the PMDC registration. While doctors can attend conferences to earn this CME credit, the opportunities are minimum and limited to major cities across Pakistan. Web-based CME is an attractive alternative to attending conferences. It can make up for 25% of the yearly PMDC requirement. So far, only two web-based CME providers have been launched in Pakistan, which is a shortage. Could Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) be used to fill this shortage? The MOOCs are online courses that are easily accessible to all learners irrespective of geographical boundary and resources, and can be used as a tool to provide CME to physicians. The problem as to how credit from PM& DC can be obtained, will need to be explored further.