Recommended Guidelines on National Schemes for Continuing Professional Development of Medical Physicists*
The European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics
EFOMP Policy Statement No. 10
Manuscript received: January 29, 2001
Accepted for publication: February 28, 2001
Abstract
Modern Health Care Services are met with ever-increasing demands on competence, specialisation and cost effectiveness. The Medical Physics Services in hospitals face the same demands. Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is vital to the Medical Physics Profession in order to: embrace the pace of change occurring in medical practice; promote excellence within the Profession; and assist in the protection of the Public against incompetence. Furthermore, CPD is a prerequisite of some statutory registration schemes, and is a requirement of the Medical Exposure Directive. The European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP) commends National Member Organisations to encourage participation in CPD. In order to assist in the harmonisation and promotion of this best practice EFOMP presents a set of general requirements for use as a template in the design of a CPD scheme. It uses a credit point system and recommends that CPD should be assessed on the basis of a 5-year cycle with a total of 250 credit points being earned during that period. Two major categories of CPD activities are recognised. Firstly attendance at pre-assessed courses, with one credit point allocated per full course hour. Secondly self-directed learning split into 8 subgroups: formal local hospital education activities, reading of textbooks and articles, lecturing, training visits, publications, congress contributions, implementation of new technologies and active membership in task groups.
KEYWORDS: Continuing Professional Development, CPD scheme, EFOMP, Medical Exposure Directive, Qualified Medical Physicist.