The program for Continuous Medical Education started in 2000, with initial financial support from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Later, other donors added their support.

The goal of this continuous professional training program is to contribute to building professional competencies of medical staff of all levels to efficiently prevent HIV/AIDS transmission and to provide quality medical care to people affected by the infection.

Later, in addition to prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, many more medical fields of interest were added to complete the professional, multidisciplinary approach of HIV/AIDS patients. At the same time, the EMC courses contributed to improving the knowledge of the staff in the medical system related to HIV/AIDS prevention in the medical field, by correctly applying, in all cases, of universal precautions.

Sponsors: Franco Moschino Foundation Italy and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (The Global Fund).

Scientific partners:

• The National Institute for Infectious Diseases “Prof. Dr. Matei Bals” in Bucharest;
• The Pediatric Clinic at the University of Medical Studies of Padova, Italy;

The continuous professional training program for medical staff is certified by the Romanian College of Physicians, Romanian College of Dentists and the Romanian Order of Biochemists, Biologists and Chemists.

Initially organized as support activity for the projects “Scaling up the Program for Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission at National Level (PMTCT)” and “Scaling up Voluntary Testing and Counseling Services for the General Population (VCT)”, the EMC program exceeded by far the planned boundaries of interest both as number of trainees and subjects approached.

Between 2004 and 2007 alone, over 44.000 trainees graduated at least one of the 15 learning modules specialized in HIV/AIDS provided through www.hivability.ro. We added to the training offer other 9 modules through www.hivacademy.ro and one through www.medability.ro (with financial support from NIVEA Baby).

At this moment, the courses available through www.medability.ro are much more diverse and come to meet the ever-changing needs for continuous professional training of the medical staff.

After going through the modules, the trainees take a final exam in order to be certified by the professional colleges to which they belong. The continuous professional education process allows for flexibility of the learning schedule which leads to important time and resources savings. These aspects represented an important motivational factor, as reflected by the high number of professionals and future professionals that took EMC courses.

Project beneficiaries:

• Medical staff of all grades;
• Biochemists, biologists and chemists in the medical system;
• Medical staff in the dentistry system;

EMC courses provided by Romanian Angel Appeal include:

• Recurrent wheezing (RW) at the child younger than 6;
• Prenatal diagnosis and chromosomal anomalies;
• Sleep disorders in children and teenagers;
• Neurologic semiology 1 – neurologic exam for older children;
• Neurologic semiology 2 – how is the neurologic exam for older children done;
• Cephalgia at children and teenagers. Epidemiology and differential diagnosis algorithm;
• Spirometry;
• Cephalgia at children and teenagers. Pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatment.
• Fetal arrhythmia: diagnosis and therapeutic principles;
• Fetal echocardiography: indications and technical aspects;
• Communication of prenatal diagnosis;
• Analgesia and sedation during invasive procedures on newborns;
• Maternal age and double testing;
• Non-invasive methods of evaluation for bronchial inflammation markers;
• Newborn with protuberant anterior fontanelle: clinical case;
• Exploring respiratory function leads to diagnosis;
• Elements of pediatric dermatology: particular features of common care and frequent dermatitis;

You can find more information about the continuous medical education program (EMC) and about the available courses on www.medability.ro.

From the feedback of over 40.000 participants, we extracted a few messages only:

1. “I really used these courses; if I had taken a lecture course I wouldn’t have received so much information. Thank you for organizing EMC this way. It’s very useful and we look forward to other courses.”
2. “I hope that you will organize other courses as well as they are useful in bringing you up to date with medical subjects and they also give you the points needed for the Romanian Order of Nurses and Midwives. Keep on going; you’re doing a great job…”
3. “These courses are very important as, unlike the lecture ones where the presentation is limited, here they can be re-read and reviewed anytime you want so the benefits are maximum, and here I’m thinking about the meaning of continuous medical education. Thank you for being here.”
4. “You’re very good! BRAVO!”