The 07/08 financial year has seen some changes for the CPD program with one triennium coming to an end and the start of a new. With the introduction of the 2008-2010 Triennium all CPD providers were required to be re-accredited, this was made easy by the new Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) online training course. Another improvement to the RACGP website was the new online provider services which enabled providers to lodge notifications, upload attendance list and submit activity reports electronically. RACGP made changes to the QA&CPD program by adding new types of Category 1 education to the schedule and increasing the points total to 40. A basic cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) component was included as a new requirement for GPs to fulfil within the triennium.

The Division also saw a change within their CPD program with Michelle Baker taking on the role as Project Officer for Eat Well Be Active Salisbury program within the Division. This gave Kylie Kasal, who has been supporting Michelle Baker with the CPD program for the past two years, the opportunity to step into the role of CPD Coordinator.

Achievements:

The Division conducted 71 educational events overall for the financial year, these included:

3 Category 1 and 50 Category 2 session
19 allied health session (Pharmacists, Mental Health Clinicians, Practice Nurses)
In conjunction with Calvary Health Care Adelaide held over 13 events for GPs within the metropolitan area.
Supported Servier in achieving RACGP points for two weekend workshops held in December 2007 and June 2008
3 Palliative Care evening session were held for International Medical Graduates (IMGs) within the Division and Adelaide North East Division of General Practice (ANEDGP)
In conjunction with ANEDGP – 16 IMGs session were held at both Divisions.
5 practice manager/practice staff sessions.
2 overseas events were organised by Dr Richard Heah with support from the Division.

Overall attendances for the sessions were good with 131 (62%) of Adelaide Northern Division full GPs members and 181 GPs from other Divisional areas attending at least one education event for 07/08.

Topics covered:

Chronic Disease (9)
Mental Health (11)
Palliative Care (6)
Orthopaedics (7)
Obstetrics Shared Care (6)
Cancer (6)
Radiology (2)
Practice Management (5)
Cardiology (6)
Diabetes (2)
Aged Care (4)
Asthma/COPD (2)

Sponsorship varied throughout the year with the following number of events:

pharmaceutical companies (27)
pathology company (1)
radiology company (1)
private hospital (16)
Division funded (10)
project funded (16)

Lessons Learned:

As this was Kylie Kasal’s first year in the position of CPD Coordinator and the start of a new triennium, many lessons were learnt:

Reaccreditation of providers
Mastering the new online provider services
Navigating through the new triennium requirements
Assessing suitable venues
Determining the topics GPs wanted and needed to upskill
Changes to sponsorship requirements for both the Division and the sponsors themselves

Future Directions:

The Division’s future directions for the CPD program

Encourage more GPs to continue updating their skills and knowledge in specialty areas of general practice medicine
To find new and innovated ways of educating our members
To promote new health management strategies within general practice
To form networks between specialists and GPs to foster better communication and referral pathways
To enhance GPs abilities to provide quality health care to the community

Other:

On a personal note I would like to thank Michelle Baker for the mentoring, support and training she has given me throughout the years. It has been a pleasure supporting Michelle within the CPD Program and look forward to her future guidance as I take on the role as CPD Coordinator.

Employee