Transcript
MIC CAVAZZINI: Welcome to CPD on Demand, for Fellows of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. This is the first in a series of interviews explaining some recent updates to continuing professional development that will make your life easier.
You’ll recall that starting in 2023, the Medical Board of Australia and the Medical Council of New Zealand brought in what were called “Strengthened CPD” requirements. These put more focus on reviewing performance through self-reflection or peer feedback and on auditing outcomes of one’s practice.
Within the RACP’s MyCPD Framework, these are described as Category 2 and Category 3 activities. These regulatory requirements have caused consternation for some College members and your feedback has been taken on board. To help synchronise CPD seamlessly with practice, the value of research and supervision has been elevated. It’s now recognised that the time which goes into data analysis and writeup of research is better reflected as a Category 3 activity, rather than Category 1. Likewise, supervision is more than just an educational activity, as a supervisor can gain insight into their own practice from Trainee feedback that merits Category 2 credit.
To learn more about quality supervision and how to record it efficiently, we have two of the RACP’s most passionate medical educators. College Dean. Dr Kudzai Kanhutu is an infectious diseases physician at Royal Melbourne Hospital and Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. She spoke with gastroenterologist Martin Veysey, who practices in Darwin, and holds three Professorial appointments while also chairing the College CPD Committee.
KUDZAI KANHUTU: Hello and welcome to our discussion on the integration of supervision activities into annual continuing professional development CPD plans. I'm Kudzai Kanhutu and I'm delighted to have Martin Veysey, join us today to share his insights on planning and recording supervisor activities as a category 2 CPD reviewing performance activity. Thankyou for joining us, Martin.
MARTIN VEYSEY: I'm looking forward to going through what I think is a really important topic for Fellows and for Trainees.
KUDZAI KANHUTU: Martin, what motivated the decision to recognise supervision within the CPD framework as a Category 2 Reviewing Performance activity and how does this align with the broader objectives of continuous professional development?
MARTIN VEYSEY: I think it moved into Category 2 because it was felt to be one of those activities that very much is about reflecting on your practice. It's asking your Trainees to consider how they're going and in doing so enables you to have a two -way conversation with them about how you're going as a supervisor as well. And so, the feeling was it was one of those activities that obviously should have probably always have been sitting in Category 2. And then that forms a critical part of your whole performance development because it comes from thinking about how good I am as a supervisor, measuring that perhaps by asking your Trainee, then reflecting on it and then working out how you can improve and be better at it. So, it fits into the whole profile really.
KUDZAI KANHUTU: Makes good sense. Supervision offers a unique opportunity for mutual learning. How can supervisors and Trainees maximise this opportunity for reflective practice that benefits both parties?
MARTIN VEYSEY: When you're providing feedback to someone, often what you do is you ask them, “How's it gone? What's going well, I suppose, and what could you do better?” Well, there's absolutely no reason as a supervisor, you can't ask a Trainee to ask you what you think is going well as a supervisor and how you could be better as a supervisor. If you do that with all of your Trainees, you're going to improve, you're going to become a better supervisor.
KUDZAI KANHUTU: So, on that, can you share some examples of how your supervising Trainees has actually helped you to reflect on your own practice over the years?
MARTIN VEYSEY: I want to be the best possible supervisor I can be because that means I'm going to get Trainees and colleagues in the future who are good clinicians and good doctors look after their patients well and make sure they're providing the best quality care they can. I always try and make sure that I'm doing a good job as a supervisor. Ask my Trainees, have I helped them? Is this beneficial? Then in doing so, learn things, get tips and tricks from them as to how to do it better next time. You know, start earlier, do it more regularly.
KUDZAI KANHUTU: Can you walk us through how you personally plan and integrate your supervision activities into your professional development plan, particularly using the MyCPD platform?
MARTIN VEYSEY: I do some of the facilitating of some of the supervisor workshops that gets automatically uploaded and I will plan at the beginning of the year how many of those workshops I'm going to do. In terms of my day-to-day supervising of Trainees, then I would anticipate how many Trainees I've got—I normally have one advanced Trainee and normally one or two basic Trainees that I'm providing educational supervision for. And then I would plan through the year when I was going to meet with them, what conversations we were going to have at each stage through the year. As we do that, create, if you like, a to-and-from email that I then upload into my CPD, into the platform, to demonstrate that I've had those conversations. And that's how it works out through the year. I mean, as you do more, you could probably even audit that activity and that would be a Category 3 activity as well.
KUDZAI KANHUTU: Excellent. So reflective practice is increasingly essential in our field, but what does quality reflection within the context of supervision look like and can you share some personal examples?
MARTIN VEYSEY: Quality reflection always just relies on you making time for it and spending time getting some input, some data on how you're going and what's going on. And then perhaps looking at it yourself and then perhaps sharing that with a colleague or during a conversation each year and actually then thinking, “well, am I doing this well? And if I'm not, how could I do it better? And is there some training or is there some upskilling I could do? Should I be actually going and watching one of my colleagues do it that I respect, and I think does it well?”
And that whole interaction can then enable you to add more value to your CPD because you can add that to yours as a practice review. You can add to theirs as well. So, all the time the thing builds on professional growth. I think the thing is to take it seriously. We're all evidence-based practitioners. The critical thing is to remember that and then try and make sure we're all the time trying to do it in the best possible way we can.
KUDZAI KANHUTU: So, I'm hearing there a message around active learning during supervision. How do you ensure that you're actively learning through supervising and how do you ensure that it's a valuable component of your overall professional development rather than just another task?
MARTIN VEYSEY: Do you know one of the best things about having Trainees is you're always learning from them aren't you? I sometimes think that Trainees know more than I do. That whole process of interacting always highlights to me areas I can develop in as well. And so, it not only is a process to try and improve and help them, but also acknowledge that I'm not perfect and therefore there are things that I can do better.
And it might not just be my supervision, it might actually be my clinical practice as well. For example, a case-based discussion. And it comes up there's an area that we both don't know much about, it might be something we could both go away and actually then come back together and share our learning and how we developed, and that's around my medical expertise as well as other aspects of what we do.
If there's been a patient complaint or there's been some advocacy that's been needed. You can also reflect on those areas of the professional practice frameworks as well. So, it isn't just your supervising, supervision practice, it's actually all aspects of the Professional Practice Framework and all aspects of what we do. And it's just another way to challenge me as a practitioner, am I performing to the best of my ability, and can I do better? And if I can do better, how will I go about developing myself on what's required?
KUDZAI KANHUTU: Recording the supervision activities and reflections can be quite the task. Do you have any tips and tricks on how do you do it in real time?
MARTIN VEYSEY: I think the important thing to remember is to record it as you go rather than waiting until the end of the year. I think that's important. I think having quick access to the MyCPD platform, although you have to go through the authentication, you can leave it open on a month -by -month basis so you don't have to go through the whole process again each time if you're using the same computer.
You can even have it set up on your phone, so it is more easy to access. I think doing it in real time is most important thing. If you wait till the 30th of March to upload all your activities, the value is reduced in terms of your learning. And so, the key is, do it as you go along, do it simply, and have those easy access routes into the MyCPD platform so you can do it.
KUDZAI KANHUTU: Yeah, in that spirit of trying to make as much value or gain as much as you can in real time as well, how do you then go about incorporating the insights you've gained from supervision into your annual CPD conversation? And are there some specific outcomes that stand out for you?
MARTIN VEYSEY: I think the way to incorporate it into conversation is to acknowledge that it's part of what we do. Sometimes when we have those conversations, we focus very much on our clinical practice rather than the other softer things that we do. The key is, remember that there are 10 domains or standards within the Professional Practice Framework and think about how am I working in each of them so that I'm actually reflecting and thinking about those.
I sometimes, as I'm preparing for my conversation, I would think about each of the aspects and think, well, what am I doing something in this space, or have I done something in this space this year? And if I haven't, is it something for next year? Do I need to think about it in terms of developing my professional development plan so that I can then build that in because I haven't thought about it this year, or I've not changed anything this year or considered it.
I think an annual conversation is something to think about preparing for and to think about all the aspects you want to discuss and have some notes and then go into the conversation, have the discussion. The idea of the discussion is to come out with a plan afterwards of how you're going to go on and develop for the following year.
KUDZAI KANHUTU: Realistically how many CPD hours might the supervisor allocate against Category 2 performance in a year?
MARTIN VEYSEY: Let's say you're supervising one Trainee. I think it's somewhere between five to ten hours. I would hope you would meet formally with a Trainee for at least half an hour every month through the 12 -month period. And at least twice a year, you're going to have a longer meeting to go through their midterm report and their end -of -year report. And so, I would count an hour for those two reports and probably half an hour for each of the other meetings, which I roughly worked out was seven hours.
KUDZAI KANHUTU: And what made you want to be a supervisor on top of everything else that you do?
MARTIN VEYSEY: You want to inspire the next generation of doctors, you want good colleagues in the future, don't you? And our Trainees are going to be our colleagues, somewhere between six and three years, depending on what stage they're at in their learning. We want them to be performing to the best of their abilities, adding value to the services that we provide. My teaching philosophy, which reflects then in my supervisor practice, is to try and inspire them to be good, the best possible physician they can be. That’s the rationale, that's why I teach, that's why I would supervise. And ultimately, it's why I continue to practice as a doctor, because I want to provide high quality care to the patients that I serve.
KUDZAI KANHUTU: Well, Martin, thanks so much for your insights and experiences. It's obvious that CPD plays a crucial role in our own professional development and also in support of Trainees. Your advice today has been incredibly instructive, and I really look forward to it enhancing other people's experiences of CPD through active supervision.
MARTIN VEYSEY: Thanks very much. Look, I hope it helps people and I’m more than happy to discuss it further with people through the College, through the CPD team as we go forward.
KUDZAI KANHUTU: Thanks. And to our audience, thanks for tuning in. We hope this conversation has provided you with some valuable insights into how you can help improve your own practice as a supervisor and also with your CPD planning.
MIC CAVAZZINI: Many thanks to Kudzai Kanhutu and Martin Veysey for sharing their insights for this podcast. Please pass it round to colleagues who might find it useful. If you want more comprehensive information on different CPD activities follow links to the MyCPD Interactive Handbook, which you’ll also see at the landing page elearning.racp.edu.au.
The Handbook provides guides on recording CPD efficiently, there are examples and templates for conducting audits and peer feedback, and plenty of online resources that you can use to build up your Category 1 hours too. The Pomegranate Health podcast also counts as an educational activity, and there’s a unique link for every episode that automatically populates your MyCPD record.
Another eLearning resource that is being published in stages over the year is called Culturally Safe Supervision. It’s focussed particularly on the Australian setting, to educate supervisors of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trainees to recognise how their own cultural biases can impact on the quality of supervision they provide.
The importance of cultural safety and addressing health inequity has been highlighted by the medical councils as part of this strengthened CPD initiative and it is the most recent addition to the RACP’s Professional Practice Framework. If you’ve not seen this, it represents the ten Professional Standards that a physician aspires to; Communication, Ethics, Judgement and Decision-Making, Leadership and Teamwork and so on. For the interesting background story behind this whole revalidation movement among medical regulators around the world, you can listen to podcast episode 39 titled Rebooting CPD.
If you have any questions about CPD activities and categories, or where your record is at, please send an email to mycpd@racp.edu.au. Thanks to your diligence, and to the support of the CPD staff, over 99 percent of Fellows successfully complete their records every year.
Please remember, that the College was founded on the country of the Gadigal clan of the Eora mob. This is just one of more than 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations and 150 iwi one whose lands we are blessed to live and work. I’m Mic Cavazzini. Thanks for listening.