Professional Development Plans & Types of CPD

Professional Performance Framework

Professional Development Plans

Professional Development Plans (PDP) are a tool to help make sure the CPD we do is relevant and useful.

PDPs:

help us think about our lifelong learning, knowledge gaps and learning opportunities
connect our learning to our practice needs
match our increasing skills and knowledge to changes in our practice.

Templates for PDPs may be provided by CPD homes.

Time spent doing – and reviewing – a PDP counts towards the 50 CPD hours required each year, as a performance measurement activity. PDPs should not take long to complete and do not need to be a complicated document.

Types of CPD

Through updated CPD, doctors in Australia will do 50 hours CPD each year, split across a range of activities:

25 hours - reviewing performance and measuring outcomes:
- doctors decide the best mix of these activities to suit their practice, with five hours minimum of each type
12.5 hours - traditional learning or educational activities – reading, lectures, conferences etc
12.5 hours free choice of activities – doctors allocate these CPD hours.

CPD content

You need to do CPD that is relevant to your scope of practice. Your CPD home will help with this.

All CPD programs will also include some core content on:

culturally safe practice
addressing health inequities
professionalism and
ethical practice.

CPD activities

Here are some examples of different activities in each type of CPD. This list is not exhaustive, so talk with your CPD home about your ideas about what activities are relevant. There may be things you are already doing at work or for your employer that CPD homes will recognise as CPD and which will count towards your CPD hours.

Measuring outcomes activities could include:

Individual-focused activities

audit focused on participant’s own practice
root cause analysis
incident report
individual quality improvement project

Group-focused activities

audit (practice, national or international)
M&M meetings, case conferences
quality improvement project
multi-disciplinary team meetings

Not directly focused on participant’s practice

assessing incident reports
leading, analysing, writing reports on healthcare outcomes

Reviewing performance activities could include

Individual-focused activities

professional development plan
self-evaluation and reflection
direct observation of practice by colleague
multi-source feedback
patient experience survey
workplace performance appraisal

Group-focused activities

direct observation of practice in team setting
multi-source feedback
patient experience survey
medical services survey/review
multi-disciplinary team meetings
peer review group meetings

Not directly practice-focused activities

participating in clinical governance/QA committees
accrediting/auditing practices, hospitals, training sites
medico-legal work (report, expert witness)

Educational CPD activities could include

Individual-focused activities

reading, viewing, listening to educational material
active learning modules
study towards formal qualifications
supervised practice

Group-focused activities

lectures, forums, panels
small group sessions
courses and workshops

Not directly focused on participant’s practice

teaching, lecturing, examining, assessing and evaluating
supervising and mentoring
participating in forums/panels/ educational meetings
leading/participating in research and publishing or presenting findings
editing or reviewing research or educational material
preparing patient education materials
participating in committees for education or research
undertaking college/society educational roles
participating in clinical guideline development

Specialist high-level CPD requirements

AMC-accredited specialist medical colleges can propose ‘high-level requirements’ for CPD that are specialty specific and additional to minimum CPD requirements set by the Board.

Specialist high-level requirements ensure consistency in the CPD programs offered by different CPD homes for medical practitioners with certain specialty/field of specialty practice.

Setting specialist high-level CPD requirements is optional. Each AMC-accredited specialist medical college decides what, if any, high-level CPD is necessary to maintain safe practice in their relevant specialty.

For example, a college may set specialist high-level CPD requirements for basic or advanced life support at least once every three years. CPD homes must ensure any specialist high-level requirements are included in your program.

The specialist high-level requirements for 2023 are below. They may be updated annually, in time to plan for the next year’s CPD.

2023 High-level requirements

Specialty	College	High-level requirement
Emergency medicine	Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM)	Completion of three core procedural skills: 1x Core Airway Procedural Skill, 1x Core Breathing Procedural Skill, 1x Core Circulation Procedural Skill per year (education activity)
Sport and exercise medicine	Australasian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians (ACSEP)	Completion of WADA/Sport Integrity Australia education in every three years (education activity), and Completion of ANY ONE of the following courses in every three years: Management of Sports Trauma course (MOST), basic cardiac life support course (BCLS), advanced cardiac life support course (ACLS), AFL Emergency Care Course, or immediate care in rugby course (level 2 or 3 course) (education activity)
Anaesthesia	The Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA)	Complete at least one Emergency response activity per year (education activity)
General practice	The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP)	Complete a CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) course every three years (education activity)
Radiology	The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR)	Anaphylaxis training as part of basic or advanced life support training once every three years (education activity)