New Zealand boasts a highly advanced healthcare system that demands medical practitioners to possess adequate qualifications and training to deliver the best healthcare services to its citizens. The country has established standards and requirements for its medical practitioners to ensure that only the best are selected from the rest.

Professional development programmes assist medical practitioners in staying current with the latest developments in the healthcare sector and enhancing their capabilities to align with these advancements. Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities help ensure that medical practitioners stay updated on their industry knowledge.

As a reputed healthcare recruitment agency, Medfuture guides its candidates on the right path towards completing the CPD hours required by medical practitioners in New Zealand.

What is Continuous Professional Development?

Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is acknowledged as a primary way of enhancing the professional standards and skills of individuals in their respective fields of study.

The Medical Council of New Zealand (MCNZ) defines CPD as the involvement in the audit of medical practice and continuing medical education that ensures doctors are competent in medical practice. It is also aimed at fostering a culture of lifelong learning and peer support.

What is the purpose of CPD for medical professionals?

The importance of CPD is increasingly vital in an ever-globalising and competitive society. It enables medical professionals to concentrate on areas they need to develop and offers a framework to enhance their knowledge. CPD activities help medical professionals stay competitive in their respective fields and create more job opportunities, as well as the ability to fill high-paying medical vacancies.

How do you manage your CPD effectively?

The CPD accreditation systems work across a wide variety of industries. It is vital for medical practitioners to manage their CPDs easily and effectively. CPD cycles allow them to do this by creating a simple framework for medical practitioners to structure their annual CPD activities and training opportunities.

CPD portals are a type of free CPD record tool that helps medical practitioners access and log their CPD activities in the same place. It assists them in setting annual CPD targets, tracking learning progress, and saving CPD attendance certificates.

Mandatory approaches to CPD

The approaches taken by health regulators in New Zealand towards using CPD as part of their recertification frameworks vary. Certain frameworks are self-directed, allowing medical practitioners to choose the CPD activities they have enrolled in.

However, there is a growing trend towards the adoption of compulsory approaches to CPD. This may involve combining voluntary and predefined topics to meet CPD requirements.

In cases where activities are not prescribed, health regulators may encourage medical practitioners to include specific subjects that are relevant to their scope of practice.

Linking outcome-based systems and CPD

There is a growing approach that links CPD activities with qualitative results, such as medical practitioner reflection, which leads to improved practice.

The importance of assessing the connection between CPD activities and enhanced medical practice follows. Practitioners are required to recognize the opportunities that exist to improve professional development and align these with the appropriate types of CPD activities.

A shift in this approach may necessitate additional support for medical practitioners. It offers effective monitoring of medical practitioners for CPD compliance, which remains a challenge in this profession.

Barriers to CPD

Several barriers have been identified regarding the challenges that medical professionals face when participating in CPD activities. The following are some of the main barriers that medical professionals encounter in this regard.

Transaction costs for practitioners

Transactions costs are the main barriers that medical practitioners have to face, which includes time, cost, and practitioner attitudes.

Barriers related to time include the following:

• Finding time to participate in CPD activities
• Finding the time to travel in relation to participating in CPD activities
• Finding time to document the relevant required details after participating in CPD activities

Barriers related to costs include the following:

• Financial costs involved in enrolling in CPD activities
• Costs involved in participating in CPD activities outside practice hours

Barriers related to practitioner attitudes include the following:

• Poor motivation
• Having a tick-box mentality

Access barriers for practitioners

• Insufficient availability of suitable training programmes and activities, which should align with their scope of practice or specific areas of interest to them.
• Demanding the inclusion of technically detailed, hands-on activities that hold significance.
• The necessity to utilise e-learning CPD training activities.
• Preferring to remain within their comfort zones when selecting relevant CPD activities.
• Facing challenges related to limited computer literacy skills and the requirement to access and use online e-learning CPD activities.

Work-related barriers for practitioners

• Work-related barriers that arise when medical professionals engage in CPD activities include the following:
• The need to find extra time after working hours
• Insufficient support from healthcare organisations and employers
• Factors related to the work environment, working patterns, and employment status.

Does CPD contribute to maintenance and improvement in competence and fitness to practice?

Here are the factors related to the contribution of CPD to the maintenance and improvement of competence and fitness to practice.

There is no single accurate way to undertake CPD, and the approach greatly depends on the medical practitioner’s scope of practice and personal choices.

It serves as an effective tool when practitioners use it in a way that actively applies their knowledge in their practice.

Certain aspects of CPD are recognized to be effective when combined with other techniques, including the development of a professional development plan and appraisal for improvement.

Specific elements of CPD are effective when integrated with other multifaceted approaches to competence.

Medical practitioners engaged in high-quality CPD activities have been observed to demonstrate enhanced clinical performance compared to others.

Recertification and professional development

What is recertification?

The MCNZ is responsible for ensuring that medical practitioners are competent to practise. One of the primary methods of achieving this is by mandating that practitioners meet the recertification requirements set by the MCNZ, which includes fulfilling the CPD requirements established by the council.

A recertification program encompasses a series of processes and activities that the MCNZ necessitates medical practitioners to undertake continuously to demonstrate their competence in medical practice.

Strengthened recertification requirements

The MCNZ has further bolstered the recertification program requirements for vocationally-registered doctors working in New Zealand. These changes are tied to the actual work that physicians undertake, aiming to enhance their practice.

Recertification program organisations that have attained accreditation must strive to meet these requirements, with implementation scheduled for 1st July 2022.

Requirements for each scope of practice

The recertification program requirements are typically based on the scope of practice in which a medical practitioner is registered and practising. The following categories are used to determine a medical practitioner’s relevance to their scope of practice:

Vocational scope

Those registered and practising solely in a vocational scope must be a part of the recertification programme that is offered by the medical college that is responsible for their vocational scope of practice.

General scope

The general scope is all about recertification programme specifications for doctors registered and practising solely in the general scope of practice. It usually involves either participating in a vocational training programme of an accredited medical college, or in the In-practise recertification programme.

General and vocational scope

Medical practitioners registered and practising in the vocational and general scope of practise are required to meet the recertification specifications that are included in both of these scopes of practise.

Provisional general – PGY1 interns

Individuals registered under this scope are either new Australian or New Zealand medical graduates or doctors who have successfully completed the NZ Registration Examination. They are required to undergo prevocational medical training.

Provisional general scope – International Medical Graduates (IMGs)

IMGs who are registered and practising within this scope through UK/Irish graduates, a comparable health system, or the Australian general registrant pathway, are required to practice in an MCNZ-approved role, under MCNZ-approved monitoring and supervision.

Provisional vocational scope

Medical practitioners registered in this scope must practice in a MCNZ-approved role at a specialist or consultant level, under MCNZ-approved monitoring and supervision.

Special purpose scope

Those registered within this scope must practice in an MCNZ-approved role under MCNZ-approved monitoring and supervision.

Changes to the recertification programme requirements

If any medical practitioner needs to pause their participation in their present recertification programme, they must inform the same to the MCNZ by sending an email to pc@mcnz.org.nz. This includes notification of any changes to the recertification programme selections as well.

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