Every surgeon and physician recognises that the skills we use to care for our patients take years to develop, need to be carefully maintained and new skills developed to allow us deliver the benefits of technical advances safely to our patients. Each individual needs to identify their own development needs and seek out the most appropriate education to help them meet those needs.

With the support of HSE NDTP and based on the feedback from a generation of Surgical and Emergency Medicine NCHDs, RCSI has developed a suite of courses to make it as convenient as possible for most doctors to meet their professional development needs. Those needs aren’t just technical skills but include other skills in other aspects of professional activity such as communications and human factors, research and statistical methods and advanced use of ICT.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed some of the requirements that doctors have and made it much more difficult to access courses provided in a traditional way. Many conferences and seminars have been cancelled or have moved online. Some skills still require face to face training and practice under direct expert supervision and our facilities have been specially adapted to allow such training take place in a safe environment.

In identifying and meeting your own development needs, you will also be meeting the requirements of the Medical Council that you maintain your professional competence. While the Council have recognised that, for some, it will be extremely difficult to meet the rigid requirements set out in their rules, it is still necessary for every doctor to enrol (or renew their enrolment) in a Professional Competence Scheme, record their professional development activities in a portfolio and record at least 25 CPD credits in the year 2020-2021.

However, RCSI would encourage you to take a broader approach, where it is possible to do so, to ensure your participate in at least 20 hours of external courses, participate and record your attendance at 20 hours of hospital based events like Grand Rounds, MDTs and quality improvement activities (even if these are by web conference). You should continue to read, particularly the key journals for your speciality, and record your reading under the personal learning category. Auditing the outcome of care process is more important than ever and we recommend that every surgeon and EM NCHD or specialist should continue to conduct and record an audit of some aspect of their practice every year. There are also many opportunities to present well designed audits at surgical meetings during the year and we would encourage you to continue to do this as many of those conferences will continue to happen online. Further details are in our online newsletter archive and on our website.

You should reflect on our own practice (including the lessons from audit), consult with your peers or consultant colleagues, and plan your Professional Development needs early in the POCS year. We provide a template for you to record this plan and peer discussion and you may claim CPD credits when you complete and upload the completed Professional Development Plan (PDP) to your PCS portfolio. Full details are available on our website.

For most surgeons, performing surgical procedures is at the core of our professional practice and we will be making our online elogbook available to those who are not on a formal training scheme. In the short term, this will enable you to produce an annual report on your operative activity and include this in your PDP process for internal CPD credits. In the longer term, you will be able to use this data to support an application for inclusion on the Specialist Division of the register. Further details will issue shortly and we will invite applications for elogbook accounts from September.

Our goal in RCSI is to help you identify your professional development needs, access the training you need to meet those needs, critically appraise your own performance (and the performance of your team) and learn from you how we might do this better in future. We welcome your feedback as to how we might do better in supporting you to provide better care to your patients, work more effectively with your professional colleagues and have a fulfilling professional career.

Professor Sean Tierney FCRS (11985)

Dean of Professional Development & Practice

RCSI

I want to welcome you to RCSI’s 2020/ 2021 very first E-Zine for NCHD’s. I hope you, your families and colleagues have all been well during the COVID 19 pandemic. Our team in Surgical Affairs are committed to supporting surgeons at all stages of their careers and meeting their professional development and training needs. The safety and well-being of patients are at the core of all our education and training programmes.

We are aware that the Medical council have relaxed a number of the requirements for the statutory Professional Competence Scheme, however, we are fully aware that those working in Irish Surgery do not just do the minimum and the opportunities in this programme are designed to augment your professional lives and practice. The COVID 19 pandemic has, like nothing before, required all in Irish surgery to adapt, rethink how they must approach their own safety and the care to their patients. We have seen the adoption of technology in how we run things like outpatients, review visits, meetings and learning. The team in RCSI have had to adapt this year’s programme to meet our “new normal” where we observe proper social distancing, respiratory etiquette and gathering sizes. Our full programme of courses will be launched during August 2020 and those that enrol early will have exclusive access to September 2020 CPD_SS courses.

This year the programme will include over 100 courses, multiday certificates, conferences and academic programmes delivered onsite in RCSI, in our Regional Centres and online to match the needs of these difficult times. The 2020/21 programme will also give you access to a range of professional certificates and other academic programmes which is a first for any of the CPDSS programmes.

I look forward to meeting many of you. RCSI is proud to be able to support you as we navigate the delivery of surgery in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic. Stay safe and well.

Kieran Ryan

Managing Director of Surgical Affairs

The Support Scheme enables those enrolled to achieve the minimum of 20 External CPD credits per annum.These credits can be used to help meet the requirements outlined by the Irish Medical Council regarding the maintenance of Professional Competence. As of May 2011, doctors are legally obliged to maintain their professional competence by enrolling in professional competence schemes and following requirements set by the Medical Council.

Online enrolment for 2020-2021 will open on Monday 13 July 2020 and will close on Wednesday 30 September 2020.

In light of the COVID–19 pandemic, the Medical Council has considered how Maintenance of Professional Competence (MPC) requirements should apply in 2020/21 and has agreed interim guidelines for then Professional Competence Scheme Year 2020/21 to:

• Help RMPs focus on the best possible care for patients and themselves;
• Acknowledge the learnings gained by RMPs during the COVID-19 outbreak; and
• Reduce anxieties regarding the recording of CPD during this unprecedented time.

For the 2020/21 Professional Competence Scheme Year, the Framework for Maintenance of Professional Competence Activity found in the Maintenance of Professional Competence Guidelines for Doctors has been modified.

Old Framework for Maintenance of Professional Competence Activity

Annually doctors are required to record one clinical/practice audit and a total of 50 CPD credits which comprise of:

• A minimum of 20 external CPD credits;
• A minimum of 20 internal CPD credits;
• A minimum of 5 personal CPD credits; and
• A minimum of 2 research/teaching CPD credits (desirable).

Revised Framework for Maintenance of Professional Competence Activity for 2020/21

For the 2020/21 Professional Competence Scheme Year only the following will apply:

• Doctors will not be required to record a clinical/practice audit with their Scheme;
• Doctors will not be required to record 25 CPD credits of the 50 CPD credit total with their Scheme.
• These credits will be considered as met arising from increased learnings by doctors during COVID-19.
• Of the 25 CPD credits remaining, doctors will be permitted to record these credits in any CPD category (external, internal, personal, research/teaching). CPD targets for each category will not apply for 2020/21.

Doctors will be asked to make a declaration about their maintenance of professional competence during the 2021 annual retention process.

The 2020/21 CPD requirements as outlined above will be kept under review in light of a protracted pandemic. Should further updates be required, these will be communicated to doctors through their Professional Competence Schemes and on the Medical Council website.

MPC advice issued to doctors in April 2020 remains:

• The Medical Council and Professional Competence Schemes will not verify or audit doctors’ CPD records for the 2019/20 Scheme Year.
• The MPC declaration has been removed from the 2020 retention of registration process.
• Scheme enrolee 2019/20 Statements of Participation will be annotated to indicate extenuating circumstances which prevented engagement in and recording of CPD activity for 2019/20.
• Late enrolment in a Professional Competence Scheme will be facilitated by Postgraduate Training Bodies.

All information is available at the following link: https://www.medicalcouncil.ie/covid-19

Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us at pcs@rcsi.ie.

The Department of Surgical Affairs at RCSI are delighted to advise that their innovative part-time postgraduate programme in Human Factors in Patient Safety is now available to complete in one year as a Postgraduate Diploma or over two years as a Postgraduate Master’s Degree. The progamme brochure can be viewed here.

This flexible part-time programme supports candidates who wish to become experts in delivering patient safety and quality improvement initiatives in acute hospitals. The programme is positioned at level 9 on the NFQ and has attracted interest from surgeons, anesthesiologists, emergency medicine doctors, obstetricians, pharmacists, nurses and midwives working in the acute hospital setting and safety and quality managers.

Enrollment is on-going and successful applicants will be allocated places on a first come first served bases. To avoid disappointment, please express your interest as soon as possible. The programme will commence as scheduled in September 2020 but if COVID-19 restrictions apply in the autumn that impact onsite delivery, then the programme is ready to commence with online delivery.

You can find out more about the programme by clicking here to register your interest, request a call or read testimonials from graduates of the programme. The Human Factors team at RCSI Surgical Affairs would be delighted to hear further from you at MScHumanFactorsPS@rcsi.ie if you should have any queries or questions.