Barriers to identifying and obtaining CME: a national survey of physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants

Table 3 Sources of Information about CME Courses, by Clinician Type

Information Source	All: No. (%); N = 500	FM: No.; N = 100	IM/H: No.; N = 100	Spec.: No.; N = 100	NP: No.; N = 100	PA: No.; N = 100	p
Online	348 (69.6%)	70	64	68	69	77	.38
Direct email communication	296 (59.2%)	68	50	62	63	53	.06
Professional associations	293 (58.6%)	61	47^a	50	70^a	65	.003
Brochures via direct mail	263 (52.6%)	57	39^a	52	71^a	44^a	<.001
Journals	260 (52.0%)	45	50	56	57	52	.44
Peers/word of mouth	234 (46.8%)	41	42	42	52	57	.08
Healthcare organizations	165 (33.0%)	32	29	26^a	48^a	30	.009
Medical societies	163 (32.6%)	39	34	37	26	27	.18
Brochures via in-person handout	104 (20.8%)	15^a	16^a	15^a	39^a	19^a	<.001
Doximity	54 (10.8%)	11	9	16	9	9	.43
Physician liaison	27 (5.4%)	4	6	9	5	3	.39
Online chat forums	24 (4.8%)	4	5	6	5	4	.96
A mentor	21 (4.2%)	6	5	5	3	2	.61
My supervisor	15 (3.0%)	3	2	1	6	3	.31

Responses were selected from a checklist, in response to the question: “How do you find out about CME courses?”
Abbreviations: FM Family Medicine, IM/H Internal Medicine / Hospitalist, Spec. Internal Medicine Specialist, NP Nurse Practitioner, PA Physician Assistant
^a Subgroup responses are statistically significantly different from one another using Tukey’s test (p < .01); in each instance, nurse practitioners’ selections were more frequent than those of the other indicated clinician type(s)

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