On the need for scholarly practitioners in CPD.

The Institute of Medicine report on redesigning continuing professional development (CPD)1 concluded that CPD is broken and the science we rely on is underdeveloped and fragmented. This report calls attention to real and significant issues, but its diagnosis of the state of the CPD field is constrained by two questionable assumptions: (1) science is the source of knowledge and information that we as CPD practitioners need to improve our practice; and (2) researchers are the producers of the relevant knowledge and information, and practitioners are the consumers and users of those products. In this editorial I argue that CPD practitioners are a critically important component of the knowledge and information system that supports and informs research and practice in the CPD field. Practitioners can and do produce scientific knowledge, and in that capacity they serve as researchers. But practitioners are also the primary source of the practical craft knowledge that must be combined with scientific knowledge to guide effective CPD practice (for an excellent discussion of the increasing role of practitioners in knowledge production see Gibbons and colleagues2). To the extent that this practical knowledge can be more systematically produced, captured, and disseminated (ie, made more scholarly), practitioners can accelerate the development of the CPD knowledge base and advancement of the field. Before launching into the argument, two definitions. The first concerns what is our practice. In the absence of a consensus definition, I offer the following: