practice partner
Staying on
top of CPD
requirements
College Registrar, Dr. Rocco Gerace,
says plenty of opportunities available
for MDs in non-clinical roles
Y
ou work in the insurance industry as a medical director. You spend most of your day
analyzing the medical records of applicants
to determine insurance risk and to evaluate
life and disability claims.
So when you meet up with your old friends from
medical school and the conversation turns to the different ways to keep current with medical knowledge,
you stay silent. After all, it has been five years since you
saw your last patient, so the requirements of continuing
professional development (CPD) don’t apply to you…
Or so you think.
The fact is that all physicians licensed to practise
medicine in Ontario are required to participate in CPD
and track their credits with a recognized CPD tracking
organization (see sidebar). The requirement, enshrined
in regulation in 2011, applies regardless of whether the
physician has a busy clinical practice, has voluntarily retired (but wishes to keep a certificate of registration), is
primarily engaged in non-clinical work or has restricted
his or her medical practice to surgical assisting.
It is imperative that all registered physicians maintain competency and track their CPD, said Dr. Rocco
40
Gerace, College Registrar. Take the earlier example of
the physician who works for the insurance company, he
says. This doctor is reviewing clinical files and making
important decisions that will significantly affect peoples’
lives.
“It is irrelevant as to whether a patient is actually sitting across from him. The company hired him because
he is a doctor. He is being paid to be a doctor. And to
do his job properly, he needs to stay on top of current
knowledge,” he said.
Physicians are required to stay on top of all kinds
of knowledge – not just clinical. The CanMEDS and
CanMEDS-FM Competency frameworks, used by the
Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada
(RCPSC) and the College of Family Physicians of
Canada (CFPC), respectively, organize the broad
knowledge, skills and abilities that physicians need into
seven physician roles: Medical Expert, Communicator,
Collaborator, Manager, Health Advocate, Scholar and
Professional. Physicians who are not involved in clinical
photo: D.W. Dorken
Focus on Continuing Professional Development
Dialogue Issue 1, 2015
Issue1_15.indd 40
2015-03-19 11:18 AM