[Rheumatology education in quality circles of office-based general practitioners: A novel andragogic concept for continuing medical education].

Continuing medical education is essential to improve the quality of health care delivery. The efficacy of postgraduate medical education generally improves when participants feel that their specific needs are met by a particular educational activity. Audit circles of general practitioners allow for a discussion of relevant issues. The present paper describes a novel concept for delivering knowledge and skills in arthritis and rheumatic conditions to general practitioners. A well-designed paper case was used for discussion in established audit circles of general practitioners, and a specially trained expert rheumatologist participated as an external expert to answer all those questions that could not be solved by the other participants. The participation of such as an expert-on-demand was found extremely helpful, as an evaluation during pilot sessions in 6 pre-existing audit circles of general practitioners revealed.