Welcome to the second Director of Professional Development (DPD) newsletter.
This month we focus on the importance of providing documentation and reflection within UCCIS to support your CPD.
All Fellows wishing to remain vocationally registered within the scope of urgent care must maintain compliance with our recertification programme. We are required by MCNZ to design and maintain this programme and keep them informed of anyone who is failing to comply. The programme, and the College’s systems and processes around it, are reviewed by MCNZ during accreditation and so we are obligated to ensure that you are all participating actively. But, despite this obligation, it is within all our best interests to be active and involved with CPD on a regular basis and it is my hope that the programme has the flexibility to enable you all to find a way of completing your requirements that suits you and benefits your practice. While I appreciate that these obligatory yearly and triennial requirements can feel a burden to busy and highly educated clinicians, and that some of you might resent the College having to chase you for evidence of completion, the College is obligated to ensure your compliance.
I talked in the last newsletter about the flexibility within our programme that should mean you all easily find activities that enable you to complete your CPD requirements. However just completing the activity is not enough to demonstrate compliance as the College needs evidence that you have not only completed it but also that you have reflected on the activity. It is therefore essential that you upload the completion to your UCCIS portfolio, attach any documentation alongside it and include your reflections on the activity. Without this evidence, we are unable to confirm compliance and are likely to have to chase you to supply the information. Therefore, upon completion of any activity please take the time to enter it into UCCIS, along with any supporting documents and your learnings and reflections. If you are having difficulty uploading documents, then please contact admin@rnzcuc.org.nz for support.
I appreciate that reflection might sound a rather loose and non-specific term. In truth, reflection and reflective practice can mean different things to different people but it is a key part of ongoing learning and development. If you are unfamiliar with what is meant by reflection, and reflective practice, then there is a great document by the General Medical Council that is worth reading. The full document is 14 pages, but they also have a short summary page which discusses and demonstrates what is expected of a reflective practitioner. This document shows the scope and variability of reflective practice and although coming out of the UK it is relevant to how we should be learning here in NZ. I encourage you all to check it out.