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Professional Competence
 

Guidelines and Resources

Home/Learn and Develop/Lifelong Learning/Professional Competence/Professional Competence Guidelines and Resources/Not in Frontline Medical Practice or Retired from Practice?
 

Not in Frontline Medical Practice or Retired from Practice?

 

Overview

A common misconception is that the requirement to maintain your professional competence record is tied to your employment status. But it is actually tied to your Medical Council registration type.

Regardless of whether you are practising full-time or part-time, treating patients or not, as long as you hold your Medical Council registration on the Supervised, General, or Specialist Division, you must enrol on a Professional Competence Scheme and record sufficient activities to meet the requirements set by the Medical Council.

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If You Don't Treat Patients

All doctors registered with the Medical Council - thus retaining the right to practice medicine - have a legal obligation to maintain their professional competence.

If you are not in clinical practice (for example, in a full-time management or research role or retired and working part-time) fulfilling the Internal CPD and Clinical (Practice) Audit/Quality Improvement requirement can be more challenging.

However, we have some suggestions as to how you can achieve the minimum requirements.

Define your scope of practice

A key point to remember is that the Professional Competence Scheme framework is based on self-directed learning and that the activities you record must reflect your current scope of practice.

Some activities may not be immediately identifiable as attracting CPD credit, but if you have clearly defined your scope of practice it should be relatively simple to map what you do in your practice to the Professional Competence Scheme framework.

External CPD (Maintenance of Knowledge and Skills)

In most cases, accumulating External CPD credit is relatively straightforward. Credits in this category are calculated as 1 hour = 1 credit

Below are examples of activities relevant to External CPD:

  • Regional, national or international scientific meetings relevant to your scope of practice
  • Educational activities organised by your training body, college or medical society
  • Courses, workshops or seminars, diploma or other courses, including online learning, that are relevant to your scope of practice
  • Our annual RCPI St Luke’s Symposium programme contains a range of day-time and evening activities that attract CPD credit
  • We deliver a wide range of educational activities, which you can find on our Courses and Events page
  • There are many other educational meetings and lectures around the country approved by the six RCPI training bodies

Tip: You can claim CPD credit in this category for any educational activity that is relevant to your scope of practice, regardless of whether or not it is CPD approved. You simply need to indicate its relevance to you through the Reflective Notes section of your ePortfolio form and provide evidence that you attended.

Internal CPD

The Internal CPD category may be the most challenging. Credits in this category are calculated as 1 hour = 1 credit.

Doctors in non-clinical practice can achieve internal credits by:

  • Involvement with your RCPI Training Body, for example:
    • Exam question setting/writing
    • Mentoring SpRs /recently appointed specialists
    • Participation in committees
    • Hospital/training site inspections
    • Meetings in connection with research projects
    • Meetings in connection with national guidelines or policies
    • Training/orientation sessions in connection with your RCPI role
  • Involvement in volunteer or outreach activities
  • Forming a journal club with other doctors in your area of practice. Articles relating to your activities could be discussed
  • Regular internal meetings related to your practice can be treated as the non-clinical equivalent of multi-disciplinary team meetings/case meetings
  • If you are teaching or acting in a professional advisory capacity, then the meetings, presentations or reviews that relate to that role can be recorded in the internal category
  • Peer review groups
  • Meetings to discuss patient incident reviews or medico-legal cases
  • Chart reviews that commonly occur in medico-legal practice
  • Attending case presentations
  • Attending meetings that relate to your current role

Tips:

  • You may claim 5 CPD credits in the internal category if you complete your Personal Development Plan before 30 September in the relevant PCS year.
  • Some activities which have been approved for External CPD may equally fulfil the Internal CPD category, depending on your scope of practice. Where you can clearly identify that the topics covered relate to your Internal CPD it would be appropriate for you to record them in the Internal CPD category.
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If You Are Retired

First of all, which scenario applies to you?

  • Fully retired - You no longer see patients and are not engaged in any activity that requires registration with the Medical Council
  • Partially retired - You occasionally see patients or are engaged in activities that require you to be registered with the Medical Council, for example, teaching, tutoring, medico-legal work, professional advisor, etc.

Retired medical practitioners are subject to the same professional competence requirements as all other doctors.

If you are fully retired and do not intend to do any medical work in the foreseeable future, then it will be very difficult to meet the professional competence requirements as set out by the Medical Council. In this case, you may wish to consider voluntary withdrawal from the Register.

There is information for retired doctors on the Medical Council website and it might be useful to contact the Medical Council Professional Competence Scheme section.

If you are partially retired and are still involved in medically related activities such as advisory, academic or medico-legal work, then you are obliged to fulfil your statutory duty to maintain professional competence requirements.

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Contact Us

We have a highly experienced professional competence support team. They are always happy to answer your questions and advise you on how to maintain professional competence.  The fastest way to contact this department is by logging in to our support desk here.

  • If you need help with your ePortfolio, we can arrange a convenient time to work with you to ensure your records are up to date.
  • If you need advice on how to apply for CPD approval for your event submit your event title and proposed date and we will talk you through what you need to do.
  • Contact the professional competence team at professionalcompetence@rcpi.ie.  If you would like a callback, please let us know the best time and phone number to call you.

Alternatively, you might like to visit Professional Competence FAQs

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