RE: CPD and reading articles

Arlo Guthrie — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 09:48:11 GMT

[quote user="christopher drillsma"]

Hi guys

My head nurse yesterday said that you can only read a certain amount of articles and claim it as CPD? I often go on the vet times and read the latest nurse articles and claim it as CPD, my head nurse says I can't just do that but will need to go on more courses. I have been on one dental course. Do I really need to do more courses or can I just claim more articles? Vet times is very good and gives me a certificate on what articles I have read so there is a paper trail on what I am doing.

I have checked the RCVS website and I cannot see that I need to change my ways. What do u guys think?

[/quote]

Hi Chris Peters

Your HN is a tad out of date!

The distinction USED to be that of your 15 hours average CPD per year, 5 hours could be undocumented reading and 10 had to be documented activities (which could actually include documented reading).

That changed at the start of 2016, when the RCVS made it a requirement to document ALL CPD:

https://www.vetnurse.co.uk/b/veterinary-nursing-news/archive/2015/07/03/157469.aspx

In fact, there aren't now any limits as to how much reading you can do as CPD - you just have to document it!

http://www.rcvs.org.uk/education/lifelong-learning-for-veterinary-nurses/continuing-professional-development-cpd/

All this ties in with the 'Claim CPD' feature here on VetNurse, which, like on Vet Times, means you can document time spent reading news stories here, then download a certificate of time spent over a given period, then upload to the RCVS PDR.

However, we have taken things a step further and added 'Claim CPD' to lots of other sections of the site, most notably these forums, where you can claim time spent participating in or reading discussions.

https://www.vetnurse.co.uk/w/help/1053.claim-cpd.aspx

Our system allows you to document, briefly, what you learned and how you plan to put it into practice (specifically to tie in with what the RCVS likes to see).

In fact, learning about CPD requirements is itself CPD, so you could claim time spent on this thread towards your allowance

The underlying rule is that you can claim anything, any forum discussion from which you learn something relevant to your role as a VN. It need not just be clinical matters.

That said, I think the greatest value probably does come from clinical discussions, and we've got the first 'Topic of the Month' CPD discussion (on wound management) coming up shortly.

Hope that's helpful, and stay tuned.

RE: CPD and reading articles

enigmaticat-uk — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 16:32:31 GMT

My understanding was that you can do up to 5 hours of undocumented reading for CPD per year so tend to use article reading for those. However I wasn't aware that Vet times does certificates for these so would have thought this would count as 'documented' and therefore ok to use as standard CPD??????