Do I still need CPD if I don’t see patients?

If you work outside a clinical setting such as research, policy, education, leadership or advisory roles, you might be wondering about whether Continuing Professional Development (CPD) still applies to you.

The answer is yes. CPD is required to maintain your medical registration in both Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, regardless of whether you provide direct patient care.

What counts as practice?

Practice isn’t limited to clinical care. If you use your medical knowledge and skills in your role, you are considered to be practising.

CPD is designed to support you in these roles by encouraging reflection, maintaining professional standards and strengthening the impact of your work.

Undertaking CPD for a non-clinical role

Even if you don’t work in a clinical environment, you are likely already undertaking activities that contribute to CPD.

CPD requirements cover three Categories.

• Educational Activities – such as attending lectures, workshops, seminars, undertaking courses, reading journals, being part of a committee or working group, or presenting at professional forums. Many of these activities may already form part of your work.
  
  
• Reviewing performance – engaging with peers, whether in person or virtually, and reflecting on your work are central to these activities. This might include supervision of medical students and PhD students, examining of medical students, reviewing journal articles or professional outputs or seeking and receiving structured feedback from colleagues, students or managers.
  
  
• Measuring Outcomes – activities that demonstrate the impact of your work, such as contributing to improvements in standards, evaluating programs or processes, undertaking audits or reviewing outputs against quality measures.

Some activities may contribute to more than one category, depending on how they are undertaken and documented.

Your PDP is a key part of CPD. It provides a structured way to reflect your goals, identify areas for development and plan how you will grow over the year.

If you already participate in performance or development planning in your role, your PDP can build on this. It helps you connect your day-to-day work (leading projects, mentoring others or contributing to policy or research) to your broader professional development. Find more information about your PDP.

Using Categories 2 and 3 to strengthen your practice

A key aim of CPD is to create space for curiosity and reflection, to step back, review your work and assess outcomes to inform how you practise in the future. This applies just as much in non-clinical roles as it does in clinical settings.

If you work outside a clinical environment, Categories 2 and 3 may feel less straightforward at first. However, many activities already embedded in your work can meet these requirements often with small, deliberate shifts in how you approach and document them.

Below are some practical examples to help you recognise and build on what you may already be doing.

Category 2: Reviewing Performance

• Creating and maintaining a self-care plan: A self-care plan is an opportunity for reflection, including the strategies you can employ to maintain self-care and wellbeing in the three areas of: the worker (you); work (the work you do), and the workplace (work environment). This template can support this process and you may wish to explore the Physician Self-Care and Wellbeing course.
  
  
• Journal peer review: Formally undertaking a peer review of journal articles including providing a written report to the publisher or author.
  
  
• Non-clinical audits: Activities such as readability audits, teaching or supervision audits, digital information audits, medicolegal audits, or occupational and environmental audits, including client feedback audits. Many of these may already form part of your work practice. You can find a comprehensive list of non-clinical audit and peer review ideas.
  
  
• Receiving mentoring or coaching
  
  
• Receiving review and feedback on your performance: Feedback may come from a range of sources in non-clinical practice. This can be from colleagues, management, or students. It is important to note that colleagues you’re working with in your individual scope of practice do not need to be fellow specialists.

Remember, a peer review, journal and mentoring meetings do not need to happen face-to-face. These can happen via Zoom or phone, whatever works best for you.

Category 3: Measuring Outcomes

Go deep with data:

• Undertake an analysis and reflection on health outcomes data as part of research related activities.
  
  
• Is there an opportunity to participate in institutional, regional or national activities that review data to develop or improve standards or guidelines?
  
  
• Are you part of a research group? Why not review your research group’s adherence to relevant research standards?

Undertake an audit:

• Auditing letters: Undertake an audit of letters of reports developed during the CPD year against plain English standards.
  
  
• Consider completing a self-audit on a chosen area of your practice using the attached generic RACP Audit Template that you can tailor as needed.
  
  
• The curated collection of Non-Clinical Audit and Peer Review Ideas is a great resource for non-clinical audit templates e.g., a cultural safety, mental health, readability, teaching and workload audit.

Why this matters

CPD is not just a requirement, it is a way to support your ongoing professional development, whatever your role.

Take a moment to consider the work you are already doing. How does it align with the CPD categories? Where could you seek feedback, reflect more deeply or evaluate outcomes?

By recognising and documenting these activities, you can approach your CPD with confidence, knowing it reflects the value and impact of your professional practice.