A method for continuing education program development in a semirural setting.

This paper describes a method of continuing education program development for use in a semirural setting. The method was tested by the development and presentation of four allied health interdisciplinary continuing education programs in a predominately agricultural region. This style of program development can be used to produce continuing education activities that are educationally sound, but do not require extensive educational expertise in the teaching/learning process. A semirural setting presents many barriers to the production of and the participation in continuing education activities. These barriers include: scarcity of the traditional academic resources for content, expertise and potential faculty; small aggregate numbers of practitioners to support activities; limited resources of small health care facilities; and geographic restrictions for travel. A method of program development was generated to utilize local practitioner interest, and at the same time, develop future resources for the area. A series of steps was developed to focus program planning activity for the planning committee.