UBC Continuing Professional Development (UBC CPD) is marking milestones achieved in the last year, showing progress toward organizational development and impact on learners.

In response to the Faculty of Medicine’s strategic vision for transforming health for everyone, UBC CPD released a strategic plan in February 2023, outlining priorities in education, partnership, research and organization — creating the pillars to advance the field of continuing professional development (CPD) through the design, delivery, accreditation, evaluation and research of lifelong learning opportunities for health professionals in British Columbia and beyond.

On July 24, the team met to celebrate, connect with one another and discuss topics that will continue to be important in the development of CPD in the years to come.

Largest provider of CPD in Canada

In February, the CFPC—the College of Family Physicians of Canada— released a report that identified UBC CPD as the largest provider of accredited MainPro+ learning activities in the country with 289 programs.  

In the last year, we’ve hosted 56 conferences, 28 webinars, 18 Hands-On-Ultrasound course days, dozens of Rural Rounds and have nearly 80 eLearning courses to choose from. Our learning activities garnered 82,387 registrations this year from urban, rural and remote communities across the country.  

At the time of writing this article, we’ve published 327 This Changed My Practice posts on more than 642 topics and reach over 100,000 subscribers with each article we post.  

“This is a fraction of what we do and what we deliver in terms of programming,” says Jackie Howard, Director, UBC CPD.  

This work is directly tied to our mission: to work collaboratively to design and deliver exceptional learning opportunities for health professionals that improve care and respond to emerging health needs.

“It’s not only the volume of our work, but the quality of our work,” says Howard.

Quality, accredited programming

Part of what ensures quality of the education is the adherence to the standards of the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Education (CACME). In addition to accrediting programs that we design and develop with our partners, UBC CPD experienced a record-breaking year accrediting external activities, exceeding 375 so far this year.  

“Importantly, CPD providers in Canada recognize the importance of standards that reduce or eliminate personal bias and industry influence, says Howard, “and we’re happy to be leading the way with education that reflects these standards.”

A connected partner in the health community

UBC CPD is a proud partner to more than 80 organizations, Faculty of Medicine departments, health authorities, joint committees and not-for-profits providing medical education.  

In partnership, we launched several new initiatives this past year, including:

  • in-person workshops to promote team-based care in Vancouver with the Vancouver Division of Family Practice
  • eLearning in partnership with Contraception & Abortion Research Team (CART) to advance access to abortion for under-served populations across Canada
  • a provincial awareness campaign and foundational training in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD)-informed care for BC health professionals, developed with the BC Ministry of Health and BC Provincial Health Services Authority

In addition to eLearning modules previously developed on the topic of adult mental health, this year marks the launch of in-community small group learning to make practice trends accessible and embedded within adult mental health learning. The pilot project will launch this fall in partnership with the Health Data Coalition (HDC), Practice Support Program (PSP).

We’re also excited about upcoming learning opportunities on the topics of BC physician wellness, alcohol use disorder and appropriate and optimal utilization of thyroid testing, developed with the Joint Standing Committee on Rural Issues (JSC) and the Joint Collaborative Committees (JCC) of Doctors of BC, the BC Ministry of Health and the UBC Therapeutics Initiative. Watch for registration to open this Fall.

A growing research portfolio

With much anticipation, we’ve made significant progress to grow our research and scholarship capacity in the last several months. In December, we welcomed UBC CPD’s first visiting professor, Dr. Vernon Curran, award-winning CPD researcher and leader.  

On July 19, Dr. Brenna Lynn, Associate Dean, CPD, co-published the article Evaluation of a Novel Online Webinar for Health Care Practitioner Education on the Health Effects of Smoking Cannabis in the Airway in the Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, showing increased knowledge and awareness of the health effects of smoking cannabis in the airway among health care providers who participated in a UBC CPD webinar.  

More recently, Dr. Adam Gavarkos joined UBC CPD as Research Associate on Aug. 19.  

“In the CPD Research Associate role, Adam will lead the development of a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program of research to advance the research goals set out in our strategic plan, contributing to the quality improvement process and demonstrating the effectiveness of CPD,” says Dr. Lynn.

Drs Curran and Gavarkos will work with staff and faculty to ensure the progress of ongoing work and initiate new projects. Read more about our research activities on CPD Highlights.

Looking to the future of CPD  

In addition to more research activity, UBC CPD is looking ahead to the future of programming to meet the needs of health professionals across the nation.  

Three themes emerged from UBC CPD at a July summer retreat in anticipation of education delivery this fall — justice, equity and inclusion (JEDI), technology in medical education and planetary health.  

With the principles of JEDI top of mind for all programs, we look forward to developing the third level of the Nawh Whu’nus’en: We See in Two Worlds - Trauma-Sensitive Practice Curriculum, for health professionals to build skills and acquire practical knowledge around trauma-sensitive practice. There are also plans to build upon the library of the French language bilingual offerings to ensure accessibility to education for national programs.  

The topics of planetary health and immersive technology in health education have emerged as important topics in the year ahead. Read more about extended reality (XR) and save the date for the Oct. 26 conference Climate Emergency: Tipping Points for Planetary Health and the Navigating Climate Change: Perspectives from Indigenous Providers webinar on Nov. 4.  

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