Background
: Obligatory continuing medical education was applied by medical law for lifelong education to physicians in Korea. A new method of continuing medical education was needed because of wide-spread and easy access to internet which resulted in improved public knowledge of medicine, and appearance of a new internet site for doctors's continuing medical education.

Methods : A questionnaire was sent twice by mil and fax to randomly selected 256 office based family physicians in Seoul and Kyonggi Province in May 2001 and 124 available responses were received.

Results : The response rate to the questionnaire was 50.7%. Median studying time per week for the past one year of the responders was 3 hours and there was no significant correlation in studying time per week with duration in practice, age, sex, or internet accessibility at clinic. The group with more than or equal to 6 years in duration of practice was significantly more than the group of participating academic conferences(P=0.027), number of participating lectures for office based physicians(P=0.001) and points of formal continuing medical education(P=0.002). The practice pattern change after attendance was 51.3% in 5years or less in duration of practice, 42.7% in 6years on more. Main causes of being reluctant to attend continuing medical education activities were 'no practical content' and 'long distance'.

Conclusion : For the improvement of quality of care by continuing medical education, practical program applicable to the clinical practices should be developed and continuing medical education activities be carried out in various areas.