Determining continuing education interests of medical technologists: an initial step.

Continuing education is an ever-increasing need for medical technologists who want to maintain and upgrade their professional knowledge and skills. Professional groups strive to develop programs to meet a diversity of needs. Planning groups often encounter difficulty during the program development process as they identify topics and select effective educational strategies for presentation. In order to help identify topics of interest and desirable educational methods for the continuing education of laboratory personnel, a continuing medical technology education interest assessment tool was developed and used by a medical technology continuing education committee. Development and use of this assessment tool and resulting statistical survey results formed the basis for two continuing education courses, both considered highly successful.