The BMJ now provides accredited CME activities in collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic Center for Continuing Education. The two organisations have agreed a collaboration whereby the CC Center for Continuing Education provides CME certification for selected research content from the BMJ on a weekly basis. CME-certified content will be of greatest interest to physicians with US medical licenses, most of whom are required to collect CME points as evidence of their continuing professional development in order to be eligible for relicensing as a medical practitioner. However, CME content is open to all readers of the BMJ regardless of their country of residence. Each completed module is worth AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™.

The user journey

Users of BMJ CME must read the accredited research article on bmj.com and click on the link at the end of the article (before the references) which launches a module comprised of multiple choice questions hosted on BMJ Learning. Once a user has successfully completed a module they may print out their CME certificate on the CC Center for Continuing Education site.

Because BMJ research articles are open-access and free to view readers will not be required to register with bmj.com to participate in research-related CME activities. However, a single registration with BMJ Learning will be required before any module can be accessed. Current users of BMJ Learning will be able to add CME modules to their ‘Plan and Record’.

Questions

BMJ’s CME modules comprise no more than five multiple choice questions based on the contents of a single linked research paper. All questions follow the ‘single best answer’ format. A pass mark of 80% is required for a user to be able to proceed to certification through the CC Center for Continuing Education. Users who do not achieve the required 80% pass mark are invited to retake the test.

The Cleveland Clinic’s accreditation statement

‘The Cleveland Clinic Foundation Center for Continuing Education is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

‘The Cleveland Clinic Foundation Center for Continuing Education designates this educational activity for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

‘Participants claiming CME credit from this activity may submit the credit hours to the American Osteopathic Association Council on Continuing Medical Education for Category 2 credit.’

For authors of research papers

For authors of research papers who would like to find out how to go about writing a set of multiple choice questions to accompany their paper, instructions for writing a module are available in our ‘resources for authors’