TRAINING CPD

BOX 2: FORMAL AND INFORMAL CPD ACTIVITIES Formal CPD activities

n In-service training at the workplace

n External courses

n Certificated study (e.g. postgraduate, undergraduate, NVQ, SVQ)

n Mandatory training for work (e.g. first aid)

n Conference or seminar sessions

n Learning from experience

n Observational development

n Clinical supervision and feedback

n Involvement in meetings n Peer review

n Systematic reflection on practice

n Management supervision and appraisal

from your experiences, and going to a meeting to writing for a journal. Come up with an article for sportEX and you could be getting paid for your own CPD! Networking works too (so that drinks party at the annual conference might count!). Shadowing a colleague or reading, teaching or lecturing (another possible source of income) are all valid too. The list isn’t by any means exhaustive and I’m sure you can think of more possibilities, even something as simple as a colleague showing you a new way of doing a task.

The web The web is a tremendous learning tool. Pick a technique in your own field (a massage stroke or an exercise or sporting movement) and enter it into You Tube. Chances are that there will be a clip and probably some good

examples (and some disasters!) for you to compare. If you don’t have an online subscription to sportEX, get one. Lots of material is linked into the articles which considerably enhances their educational impact. Remember that the HPC guidelines on CPD speak of doing things that are appropriate to your service. That doesn’t have to be learning new techniques. Are you in private practice? What are your business and marketing skills like? Try your local Chamber for Commerce – they have all sorts of services and information for small businesses (6)

.IT CAN’T BE THAT EASY, WHAT’S THE CATCH? It really is easy. You’ve established what you need to know. You’ve got the answers from one source or another, and all you have to do is try

what happened? STAGE 1

Figure 3: Circle of learning

Informal CPD activities n Significant incident analysis

n Networking n Mentoring and coaching

n Formal talks and workshops

n Teaching and lecturing

n Reading for self- development

n Shadowing

n Writing for journals or other publications

n Research

it out. Then – like any job – follow it up with some paperwork. The key word is REFLECTION! This is the CPD equivalent of core stability work. It is the foundation of what you are doing.

Reflective practice

This is a method of learning from experience. It is a model that can be used not just for CPD but for every aspect of life. It is particularly relevant to the health industry and is seen as a pathway to the improvement of the quality of care, stimulating personal and professional growth, and closing the gap between theory and practice (7). Kolb and Schön (8,9) and many others have written on this subject. All these authors add or subtract from the basic model, but what it boils down to can be seen in Fig. 3. Eventually good reflective practitioners can whiz through the process in their heads, but initially (and for your CPD records) you need to write things down. It really does help focus your mind and arrange your thoughts.

STAGE 4 what next?

THE CIRCLE OF LEARNING

how did I feel? STAGE 2

The circle explained Stage 1 – What happened? The top of the circle consists of a description of what occurred – just the facts, in as much detail as possible (where you were; what were you doing; who else was there; what were they doing; why you were there; what the context of the situation was; what happened; what the result was). Really this can apply to any event in your life. It might be a treatment or a training session or an argument with your boss. I’ve done one for a car crash. I have to reiterate here that you must be honest with yourself. During my car crash reflective it was only on my second time “around the circle” that I included the role of the mobile phone, and after that everything fell into place. Stage 2 – How did I feel? After you have laid out the facts, move on to the second stage. Write down the thoughts and emotions you experienced as the event unfolded. This might seem a bit “touchy feely” for macho sports people, but Confucius

why did it happen? www.sportEX.net STAGE 3

AND I MAY REMEMBER. INVOLVE ME, AND I WILL UNDERSTAND

TELL ME, AND I WILL FORGET. SHOW ME,

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