In recent years, however, lightweight, accurate, portable telemetric metabolic measuring systems have been designed that enable researchers and practitioners to obtain measurements during running outside of a laboratory environment.
There is also a 'discussion forum' that allows practitioners to obtain consultation on particularly perplexing cases.
The OSC is a national initiative whose aim is to "teach practitioners to obtain good quality spirometry >90% of the time, standardize testing performed in the office setting, assure test accuracy and validity and to ensure staff competency" (http://www.aarc.org/osc/).
Questionnaires were distributed among the 109 highway practitioners to obtain their agreement level on these elements.
For subjects for whom tamoxifen data in the hospital notes were incomplete, we contacted general practitioners to obtain more complete information.
Methods for general practitioners to obtain advice and support from specialist services for their patients when they experience complications would also help reduce unplanned admissions.
During the study period our unit policy was to continue previous statin therapy, and dedicated ICU pharmacists routinely interviewed patients, relatives and the patients' general practitioners to obtain information on all chronic medications.
At each coaching session, practice nurses were meant to discuss progress, empower patients to visit their general practitioners to obtain further measurement of their risk factors, educate patients about risk factor targets, and negotiate a plan of action to reach target levels by means of lifestyle modifications and intensification of treatment with medications.
In contrast with external validity, the use of graduate and undergraduate students instead of industry practitioners allowed us to obtain a good sample (87 subjects) to support the validity of the results.
Although all practitioners should aim to obtain a formal postgraduate qualification in the subject, it has been reported that the product training organised by commercial companies, short 1 to 2 day courses (with no predetermined learning outcomes) and study club meetings were ranked as the three common forms of CPD education in implant dentistry in Europe [10].
