What can be classed as CPD? Jocelyn Pryce, Deputy Head of Education at the IBMS, looks at opportunities, barriers and a day of discussion.
It’s always nice when we are able to engage with our members and facilitate the sharing of good practice. We were able to do this recently when we hosted a CPD Officer Event here at Coldbath Square.
The aims of the day were for our CPD Officers to understand what their roles and responsibilities may entail and how we can support them to support their colleagues in the laboratory, by describing what is meant by continued professional development, why it’s important, what activities are acceptable to be used as CPD and what reflection is.
It was an interactive day and, as there’s no such thing as a free lunch, we kept the presentations short and got everyone networking and sharing ideas. We looked at what CPD is and can be, finding out it can be almost anything. It doesn’t have to be an event or conference, a lunchtime meeting or evening session – it is embedded in everything we do. You might use an incident, an audit, or even a conversation held in the tearoom if it has been a learning experience. My co-host Mike Carter explained that tearoom chat can be a great place to share knowledge and a learning experience, maybe not the latest gossip or events in Coronation Street but, for example, it could be sharing knowledge about COVID-19.
We also spent time considering some of the perceived barriers to undertaking CPD, including lack of time, geographical location, funding and support from management, and discussed ways that our CPD Officers may offer support to overcome them.
Our workshops were scenario-based and involved groups of CPD Officers sharing ideas for CPD within a scenario where they were the CPD Officer for a small laboratory, with a mixture of staff grades across two geographically remote sites. The outcomes were really impressive and showed that there are some great, innovative opportunities for CPD going on across the country.
Reflection is an area that can raise fear and dread and we spent time looking at why reflection is important, how valuable it can be and how to approach it in a painless way.
By the end of the day everyone had produced a piece of reflective writing and we had considered ways of using prompts to encourage those who find reflection difficult to capture their thoughts and feelings.
The networking nature of the workshops allowed sharing of ideas and attendees have access to the outputs to refer back to. Feedback on the day has been very positive, with a satisfaction rate of over 90%, and some of the comments we have received suggest that delegates took lots of ideas away with them and felt that they were well prepared to support their colleagues back in the laboratory.
As this day was so well received, we have decided to run some more during 2020, so if you are a CPD Officer or would like to become one, please keep an eye on our website or contact [email protected] for further details.