OSLER CPD HOME:  PROGRAM AND REQUIREMENTS 

Introduction

Osler believes that self-driven lifelong education is a vital part of any medical professional’s career.  Osler’s CPD Home Program and Platform encourages self-directed learning that meets the needs of the individual practitioner and Australian regulatory authorities. Osler CPD encourages proactive learning and the continuous improvement of the member’s knowledge and practice. Medicine is an ever-changing field, and CPD assists practitioners to remain engaged with the most up to date research and information and reflect on and review their own practice. 

CPD Requirements 

The Osler CPD Cycle is 12 months based on the calendar year, from 1st January to 31st December inclusive.

Within the CPD Cycle, all Members are required to complete the following: 

1. Develop an annual Personal Career Development Plan (PCDP)

2. Complete a minimum of 50 hours per year of CPD activities that are relevant to your scope of practice and individual professional development needs.

3. Complete a minimum of 12.5 hours in educational activities. 

4. Complete a minimum of 25 hours in activities focused on reviewing performance and measuring outcomes, with a minimum of five hours for each category.

5. Complete an additional 12.5 hours in any CPD Activities category or combination of categories, to reach the minimum requirement of 50 hours per cycle. 

6. Complete at least one activity that specifically addresses each of the following categories:

• Encourage and promote culturally safe practice

• Address health inequities

• Maintain and develop professionalism

• Maintain and develop ethical practice

For Medical Specialists:

1. In addition to the basic requirements, if relevant, any specialist high-level requirements outlined by the specific medical college for a practitioner’s speciality.

Personal Career Development Plans 

A personal career development plan is a set of steps to help you identify your educational needs and undertake and review your chosen educational activities. A plan should assist you in defining your goals and aims for the year ahead and should ensure you are doing all you can to provide the best possible care to your patients.

Osler’s Personal Career Development Plan template recommends the following steps:

1. Objectives: Outline your career objectives for the year

2. Self-Evaluation: Conduct a self-evaluation and record your strengths and limitations (including a review of your previous CPD plan)

3. Yearly Plan: Outline the actions (using the SMART goal format) you will take to achieve your goals.  You must include goals directly related to the 4 key pillars of the Good medical practice: a code of conduct for doctors in Australia:

1. Professionalism

2. Ethical Practice

3. Health equity, and

4. Culturally safe practice

4. Review: Evaluate and reflect on your plan at the end of the cycle. 

If you need help or support developing your Professional Development Plan, reach out to a supervisor or peer to discuss your objectives. Discussions with colleagues can support the development of your plan. You can request a colleague or supervisor to review your plan from the app itself.

Recording Activities

The Osler CPD Diary is designed to be intuitive and user friendly. CPD Home members can log on and enter completed activities at any time.  A user guide is available. 

Each activity entered can be assigned to the relevant activity category; Educational Activity, Reviewing Performance and Measuring Outcomes. 

Activities can also be tagged and classified as an activity that promotes cultural safety, addresses health inequities, maintains, and develops both professionalism and ethical practice, or as relevant to a specialist high-level requirement.

Members must verify that externally completed CPD activities meet the standard required by the CPD Home program, as outlined by Table 1 and Table 3 below, before each activity can be saved.

Variations and Exemptions

Osler’s CPD Program may offer exemptions for members under the following circumstances.  

• Parental leave

• Carer’s leave

• Sick leave 

• Bereavement Leave

• Cultural Responsibilities 

A member may have their CPD requirements exempted for up to a maximum of 12 months. If exempted for 12 months, mid cycle, a member will be expected to complete their 50 hours of CPD over the two year period.

To apply for an exemption, a member must write to the CPD Manager for approval. The CPD Manager will have delegated authority to approve most exemptions. If an exemption requires further discussion, the CPD Advisory Group will be consulted for a final ruling.

Documentation or evidence may be requested. Examples of documentation could include:

• Medical Certificate

• Letter from employer

• Letter of support from independent persons 

• Police report 

• Statutory declaration 

Accessing and Transferring Records

Members in the Osler CPD Home program will be able to download their own CPD Certificate of Completion from the platform, which will be available from 30th June in the year following the CPD cycle. 

At any stage during the cycle, members can export and share to themselves all their CPD activity data (by calendar year). This will be in CSV format.

This information can be shared with relevant organisations at the discretion of the member.

Assessing Activities for CPD Recognition

While Osler does not review every activity entered, it is expected members will only submit activities which comply with Osler’s standards, as outlined in policy CPD Home : Audit process.  5% of members will be audited at the end of the calendar year for compliance.

To streamline the process of audit and to enhance member experience, Osler has pre-approved content for use in its CPD Home Program - this is known as Recommended Content - which may be Osler content or accessed from a third party.

All Osler content is automatically approved Recommended Content.  As such, it will automatically satisfy the “Quality” criterion during the audit assessment (outlined in poicy CPD Home : Audit).  

Third party content that is recommended by the Osler platform is also automatically approved.  The process for assessing these activities is outlined in policy CPD Home : External Content Accreditation.

Non-approved external activities will be reviewed as part of the audit process, covered in policy CPD Home: Audit Process.

Selecting activities

Osler’s philosophy is that adult learning should be self-directed and self-motivated, thus members are able to make decisions regarding their own learning. 

A list of activities and their corresponding categories are below: 

Educational Activities Category

• Reading, viewing, listening to educational material 

• Active learning modules 

• Study towards formal qualifications 

• Supervised practice attachments 

• Executive coaching and mentoring 

• Lectures, forums, panels 

• Small group sessions 

• Courses and workshops 

• Preparing formal educational materials

• Teaching 

• Examining, assessing, and evaluating 

• Supervising and mentoring 

• Lecturing, participating in forums/panels 

• Teaching in small group sessions/courses/workshops 

• Presenting research papers/posters 

• Convening/chairing educational meetings 

• Leading or participating in research 

• Reviewing ethics or grant proposals 

• Publishing research or educational material 

• Editing or reviewing research or educational material 

• Preparing patient education materials 

• Participating in committee for education or research 

• Undertaking college educational roles 

• Participating in clinical guideline development
  

Activities for Reviewing Performance Category

• Self-evaluation and reflection 

• Direct observation of practice  

• Review of work product 

• Multi-source feedback 

• Patient experience survey  

• Workplace performance appraisal  

• Peer review groups 

• Direct observation of practice • 

• Participating in clinical governance/QA committees 

• Review of work product 

• Multi-source feedback 

• Patient experience survey 

• Medical services survey/ review 

• Accrediting/auditing practices, hospitals, training sites 

• Medico-legal work (report, expert witness) 

• Multi-disciplinary team meetings 
  

Activities for Measuring Outcomes Category 

• Audit focused on practitioner’s • own practice 

• Root cause analysis 

• Incident report 

• Quality improvement project 

• Multi-disciplinary team meetings 

• Audit (practice, national or international) 

• Morbidity and mortality Meetings

• Case Conferences

• Assessing Incident reports

• Leading, analysing, writing reports on health care outcomes 
  

Activities that Encourage and Promote Culturally Safe Practice

• AIDA: Cultural Awareness – An Introduction to Cultural Safety 

• AIDA: Cultural Safety Training

• Osler: Roundtable : Rural and Regional ICU

• Osler: Careers in Health - Humanitarian care

• Osler: ICU outcomes for Indigenous Australians

• Osler: Careers in Health - Remote and rural medicine

Activities that Address Health Inequities

• Osler: Roundtable : Rural and Regional ICU

• Osler: Careers in Health - Humanitarian care

• Osler: ICU outcomes for Indigenous Australians

• Osler: Careers in Health - Remote and rural medicine

• Osler: A career in global health

• Osler: Prehospital mental health

• Osler: The ageing casemix of ICU

• Osler: Transfusion in septic African children

• Osler: Careers in Health - Rural and Regional ICU

Activities that Maintain and Develop Professionalism

• Osler: Advice to my intern self

• Osler: Aligning your core values with your career

• Osler: Ancient brain, modern world

• Osler: Burnout in healthcare

• Osler: Capacity to train

• Osler: Coaching and mentorship in healthcare

• Osler: Compassion fatigue

• Osler: Crisis resource management

• Osler: Crowded hours

• Osler: Curiosity in Medicine

• Osler: Editorial - Elevating the importance of a discharge summary

• Osler: Feedback (helping, not harming)

• Osler: Getting the most from your surgical term

• Osler: Giving feedback

• Osler: Go with your flow

• Osler: Healthcare is a battlefield

• Osler: Healthcare relationships

• Osler: How many of these have you done?

• Osler: How to fail

• Osler: How to write a discharge summary

• Osler: Ikigai - the art of finding your why

• Osler: Imposter Syndrome

• Osler: Learning and culture in healthcare

• Osler: Life as a locum

• Osler: Negotiation skills for female doctors

• Osler: Performance Basics

• Osler: Physician don't heal thyself

• Osler: Productivity tips for healthcare professionals

• Osler: Receiving feedback from below

• Osler: Recency of practice

• Osler: Skills degradation

• Osler: Take care of yourself: your patients depend on it

• Osler: The art of self-reflection

• Osler: Transparency is the new black

• Osler: Words matter

• Osler: Writing a healthcare CV

• Osler: You're Only Making It Worse

• Osler: Workplace violence in ICU

• Osler: Maintaining competence throughout your career

• Osler: Negotiation skills for female doctors

• Osler: Leadership skills for junior doctors

• Osler: Antimicrobial Stewardship

• Osler: Coaching in health

• Osler: Capacity to make decisions

• Osler: Coaching in healthcare

• Osler: Coaching in healthcare

• Osler: Coaching in healthcare

• Osler: Peer Support for Junior Doctors

Activities that Maintain and Develop Ethical Practice

• Osler: How many of these have you done?

• Osler: Transparency is the new black

• Osler: Capacity to make decisions

• Osler: A career in global health

• Osler: The ageing casemix of ICU

• Osler: "Everything" at the end of life

• Osler: Aligning with patients at the end of their lives

• Osler: How he died

• Osler: If healthcare error was a disease

• Osler: Critical illness - the patient perspective

• Osler: Life limiting illness in ICU

• Osler: Complex decision making

• Osler: The Gift of Life - Organ Donation after Neurological Death

For further information on assessing activities for suitability for your CPD, please see the policy document CPD Home: Audit Process

Renewal

Your CPD Home subscription is paid for the current CPD Home year. Irrespective of when you subscribe, your subscription will renew on the 15th of January each year. You must notify us by the 15th December if you wish to cancel your subscription for the following year.

Audit Process

As required by the Medical Board of Australia, the Osler CPD Home Program will conduct an annual audit of 5% of participants, chosen randomly from its membership base.

Members will be notified if they are selected for an audit.  Further information may be requested from the member as part of the audit process, and the audit result will be communicated to the member.

Further information on the audit process is found in policy document CPD Home: Audit Process

Review and appeal

Following the audit process, all members are entitled to a Review of any decisions made about the validity of activities claimed.  Members can request a review by doing so in writing, at no cost.  There are no specific criteria for requesting a review.

Following the review process, members are entitled to request an independent Appeal.  Members must request the appeal in writing.  An administration fee may be required prior to the Appeal being undertaken.

Further details on the Review and Appeal process are found in policy document CPD Home : Audit Process

Proof Required

If chosen for an audit, members will need to provide evidence of participation in activities up to the minimum requirements as outlined in the program document.  Evidence for activities must be provided by uploading the evidence documentation using the “Files” provision for each activity.

Examples of suitable evidence are provided in the policy document CPD Home : Audit Policy