Keeping record of your continuing professional development (CPD) activities is a necessity for all Physiotherapists. By keeping track of your learning activities you can demonstrate the impact of your learning on your practice, and that you are keeping up-to-date with evidence, showing you are competent and safe. It will also show why you are suitable for jobs, promotions and further education courses such as Master’s level study. Think of it as a timeline of your career, a thumbprint of you as a therapist, without it you lack a professional identity.
Not every method of tracking CPD is suitable for each individual, so thankfully there are a variety of options out there, aside from a trusty paper-based portfolio.
Track with aPTitude.
The FSBPT have a fine example of an online platform to track CPD; aPTitude. This is a free continuing competence resource for American PT’s and students. It is an easy way to own a private online space where you can record all of your learning, reflections, certificates and credit’s you have earned. It is safe, secure and will remind you to keep up with credit deadlines.
Additionally aPTitude isn’t just for PT’s, it is also a great place for educators to market courses and then receive feedback from participants. The platform will then also review all states’ requirements in a single place with multi-state certification. This allows fair market research to take place giving piece of mind to therapists ensuring value for money.
With a personal blog.
Many Physiotherapists use blogs to demonstrate and share their knowledge with others who are interested. The advantage of blogs is that they are reflective, personal and versatile in nature. It allows you to be creative while demonstrating core academic skills at the same time, albeit public.
Great examples being The Sports Physio, Roger Kerry, and Michael Rowe. Don’t forget Physiospot has its’ own offering through the voices columns. Right now there are two brilliant young Physio’s, Chris Martey and Andrews Tawiah, sharing their journey through the topics of Rheumatology and Rehabilitation. Their contributions are timeless and will benefit their careers hugely.
Blogs can seem daunting to those who believe they lack writing skills or feel like they have nothing to offer others who they see as more expert than themselves. This is wrong, everyone has something to offer everybody. Your unique mind and experience cannot be replicated and therefore your learning experience offers a different perspective to others.
Although a blog doesn’t have to be public, you can create your own private blog, who said you had to publish it. Isn’t a blog a reflective piece of writing?
With PP+
Physiopedia Plus allows you to monitor your CPD activity with the unique PP+ dashboard. Once you are a member of PP+ you gain access to all of the past, present and future world class content. This includes:
- eLibrary of books, technique and test video library,
- technique and test video library,
- monthly evidence updates through the Latest Specialities and Msk,
- quizzes to demonstrate knowledge and understanding,
- access to unique courses including clubfoot, stroke, global health and many more,
- podcasts,
- input reflections on each activity you complete.
If you have trouble keeping your learning portfolio up to date then PP+ is perfect for you. At any stage you can export, import and print your learning activity. Your evidence is readily available at all times.
In considering global accessibility Physiopedia is ever aware of the difficulties faced by professionals in resource poor countries in accessing knowledge resources. With this in mind, they will be offering significant discounts on membership costs to physical therapists in low and middle income countries.
Good old pen and paper
There is noting wrong with a few sheets of A4 paper and a file to keep them in! It’s a quick and easy way to make a record and means you don’t have to scan in your certificates. However it is worth thinking about keeping a digital folder so that if you are audited you can quickly and easily copy and paste things into your submission. Remember to keep this file on a cloud hosting platform such as Google Docs or iCloud so that when you computer crashes you don’t loose your portfolio!
This is just a few examples of different ways to track and monitor your CPD activities, there are others available and we’d love to know what you do to track your CPD activities. Let us know in the comments, via Facebook or Twitter.