en Medical Education Medical Education Original Research Original Research <p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Background and objective: </strong>Traditional approaches in Continuing Medical Education (CME) appear to be ineffective in any improvement of the patients&rsquo; care, reducing the medical errors, and/or altering physicians&#39; behaviors. However, they are still executed by the CME providers, and are popular among the majority of the physicians. In the present study, we have done our best to explore the parameters involved in the degree of CME programs&rsquo; effectiveness in Iran.</p> <p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Methods: </strong>In this study, 31 participants, consisting of general practitionares, CME experts and providers, were recruited to participate in in-depth interviews and field observations concerning experiences with CME. Application was made of the qualitative paradigm along with the qualitative content analysis, using grounded theory data analysis methodology (constant comparative analysis).</p> <p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Results</strong>: Our analysis demonstrated that: based on participant experiences, the insufficient consistency of the training program contents with the demands of GPs, besides non-beneficiary programs for physicians in addition to non-comprehensive educational designs, created a negative attitude to the continuing education among physicians. This could be defined by unrealistic continuing education, which is the main theme here.</p> <p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Conclusion:</strong> Impracticable continuing education has created a negative attitude toward the CME programs among physicians so much so that they consider these programs less important, resulting in attending the said programs without any specific aim: they dodge absenteeism just to get the credit points. Evidently, promoting CME programs to improve the performance of physicians requires factual needs assessment over and above adaptation of the contents to the physicians&rsquo; performance.</p> Continuing Medical Education, General Practitioners, Qualitative Study, Content Analysis, Effectiveness 29 33 http://mjiri.iums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-2548-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Seyed Aliakbar Faghihi 200319475328460031163 200319475328460031163 No Department of Medical Education, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Hamid Reza Khankeh 200319475328460031164 200319475328460031164 No Department of Health in Emergency & Disaster, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran, & Department of Clinical Sciences and Education, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. Seyed Jalil Hosseini jhosseinee@gmail.com 200319475328460031165 200319475328460031165 Yes Infertility & Reproductive Health Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Seyed Kamran Soltani Arabshahi 200319475328460031166 200319475328460031166 No Department of Medical Education, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Zahra Faghih 200319475328460031167 200319475328460031167 No Shiraz Institute for Cancer Research, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran Mandana Shirazi 200319475328460031168 200319475328460031168 No Educational Development Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, & Department of Clinical Sciences and Education, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden