(Updated on 03/05/2002)

Introduction

The importance of continuous education for dentists, which will gradually become compulsory in the ambit of the European Union, has led the Portuguese Dental Association to assume responsibility for supervising its members' training activities and for organising their respective programmes by defining their rules. Due to the increasing number of public and private institutions offering training programmes, together with the lack of control of their technical and scientific quality, as well as of the contents of their syllabuses and of their operating conditions, it is essential to take all the necessary measures, particularly to protect those colleagues who enrol in courses with no quality guarantee whatsoever. Therefore, a set of rules must be defined, in order to have an organised system meeting the adequate quality standards and ensure that all the courses or other initiatives have been duly accredited by the Portuguese Dental Association. Consequently, a first stage of regulations will deal with the accreditation of scientific events, whereas a second stage will be concerned with the individual accreditation of dentists. Notwithstanding any other applicable regulation, and after the final proposal for these regulations has been approved by the OMD's Technical and Scientific Committee, the Board of Directors of the Portuguese Dental Association has decided the following:

Chapter I - General principles

Article 1 - Competence

The OMD shall organise, promote and accredit training initiatives, in compliance with policies defined by this institution in all that concerns topical outlines, organisation, operation and other elements considered relevant. The technical and scientific accreditation of events shall be granted by the OMD after hearing the view of its Technical and Scientific Committee. Individual accreditation of dentists shall be implemented once the continuous training programme and the accreditation of events are fully operational.

Chapter II - Accreditation of events

Article 2 - Activities eligible for accreditation

The activities eligible for accreditation include theoretical and/or practical courses, lectures, conferences, meetings and similar initiatives with a minimum net duration of three hours. The above mentioned events, when organised in modules distributed through different days, shall only be accredited if they have a maximum total duration of 4 (four) days. The accreditation granted by the OMD shall be valid for only one edition of the event, never extensible to future editions, even when of similar characteristics. The activities mentioned in the first paragraph of this Article may be organised by the OMD, Scientific Societies, Universities or equivalent institutions and private organisations.

Article 3 - Requirements for accreditation of a scientific event

The accreditation shall be requested from the Board of Directors by the organiser, using a special form provided by the OMD, submitted at least 90 days before the beginning of the event. The request shall include the following information:

a)Date, place and duration of the event;

b)Organising committee and/or responsible entity

c)Scientific committee

d)Secretariat

e)Description of the reasons and objectives of the event

f)Official language of the event (when featuring lectures in foreign languages, the existence or not of simultaneous translation must be specified)

g)Scientific programme (including fields covered, lecturers' names and partial and total number of hours)

h)Professional and curricular identification of the lecturers

i)Featured demonstrations and practical exercises (if any)

j)Targeted public

k)Registration fee and maximum number of participants allowed

l)Place (infra-structure) where the event will be held (capacity and technical / audiovisual resources available)

m)Sponsors

The request must be accompanied by a fee in the amount of € 74,81 (15,000 PTE) as defined by the OMD to cover the expenses of process assessment. The applicant shall be solely and fully responsible for the request. The OMD has no obligation to rectify or to demand any missing information regarding an incorrect or incomplete request. Failure to observe the above mentioned time limit or incomplete information shall be the applicant's exclusive responsibility and shall constitute sufficient motive to deny accreditation.

Article 4 - Rights and duties of the OMD

1. The OMD, through its Technical and Scientific Committee, shall evaluate the request within thirty days after receiving the request.

2. The accreditation of the event shall depend on the analysis of the information provided by the applicant, and the OMD's decision may not be impugned.

3. The accreditation denial of any event shall not give the applicant any rights over the OMD, such as reimbursement or monetary compensation.

4. The OMD may choose to publicise some accredited events among its members. The OMD, however, has no obligation to do so, and this publicity cannot be demanded by the organisers of any event.

5. The OMD shall appoint two members of the Technical and Scientific Committee, or their representatives, to attend the accredited events and write an evaluation report.

6. In accordance with Art. 5, paragraph 3, the OMD shall provide a card scanning machine for the electronic registration of each dentist's credits (after the implementation of the individual accreditation of dentists)

Article 5 - Duties of the organisers

1. Accept the technical and scientific evaluation of the event, carried out by an expert appointed by the OMD.

2. Agree to any questionnaires or polls that might be conducted among the participants during the event.

3. Consent to the presence of OMD staff in the reception and secretariat area, in order to control the process of automatic registration of credits in each dentist's card.

4. Pay in advance for the mailing services of the OMD, when so requested by the organisers and accepted by the Association, in compliance with the rules in force, as well as the amount of one or two enrolment fees. This money shall be used to pay for the enrolment fee of the evaluators.

5. Inform the OMD of any changes in the request previously submitted, at least 30 days before the commencement of the event.

6. The promotional material must show the approved logo as a means of demonstrating accreditation.

7. Further to the previous paragraph, the approved logo is understood to mean that which complies with the compulsory rules regarding the use of the logo, as described in a separate guidebook.

8. The above mentioned guidebook is contained in a CD-ROM available at the offices of the OMD for the organisers of accredited events.

9. The promotional material of the event shall identify the members of its Scientific Committee.

Chapter III - Quality control

Article 6

1. All the continuous training initiatives accredited by the OMD shall be evaluated by the Technical and Scientific Committee after they are completed. The result of this evaluation shall be recorded in the OMD's database.

2. The evaluation carried out by the OMD shall be based on the report written by the evaluator(s) appointed by the OMD as well as on the questionnaires answered by the participants.

Chapter IV - Promotion

Article 7

1. The OMD accreditation of a continuous training initiative entitles the organiser to advertise this fact in all the documentation related to the event, in compliance with the rules defined by the OMD.

2. The organiser may request from the OMD a promotional mailing campaign among all registered dentists, after payment in advance of the corresponding fee.

3. The OMD has the right to refuse to provide the service mentioned in the previous paragraph, without any need for justification.

Chapter V - Omissions

Article 8

All the issues omitted in these regulations shall be resolved by the OMD.

Article 9

The request for accreditation entails the knowledge and understanding of all the rules defined in these regulations. Thus, it shall be accompanied by a declaration signed by the applicant, accepting these rules fully and without reservations.