We came across an article recently which suggests that the standard educational method of attending lectures is a poor way of learning. It suggests that studying real patients in depth is a much better way of learning. Some medical schools have adopted the "PBL" -- "problem based learning" syllabus. For practicing physicians a more interactive format may be a better way of providing continuing professional education than the lectures which we traditionally attend at conferences and hospital rounds.
An excellent article appeared in The Journal of General Internal Medicine on this topic in 2004. Here are the particulars:
Toward Continuous Medical Education click on Download zeiger_cme.pdf
for full article
Roni F Zeiger, MD
Gen Intern Med. 2005 January; 20(1): 91–94.
While traditional continuing medical education (CME) courses increase participants' knowledge, they have minimal impact on the more relevant end points of physician behavior and patient outcomes. The interactive potential of online CME and its flexibility in time and place offer potential improvements over traditional CME. However, more emphasis should be placed on continuing education that occurs when clinicians search for answers to questions that arise in clinical practice, instead of that which occurs at an arbitrary time designated for CME. The use of learning portfolios and informationists can be integrated with self-directed CME to help foster a culture of lifelong learning.