Only a physician organization may apply for accreditation. 
The physician organization is accountable for all aspects of the CPD activity, including governance, content, and financial management. All accredited CPD activities must clearly identify that organization on all program materials. 

What is a Physician Organization?

A physician organization is a not-for-profit organization with a formal governance structure that serves and is accountable to its physician members. 

Physician organizations must meet requirements related to organizational structure, physician membership, governance, and member participation. 

Refer to the application form for the complete criteria and verification questions.

Examples include the following:

• Faculties of medicine
• Hospital departments or divisions
• Medical societies
• Medical associations
• Medical academies
• Physician research organizations
• Health Authority Medical Department or Medical Advisory Committees (HAMACs) 
• Canadian provincial medical regulatory authorities (MRAs)

This definition does NOT include:

• Healthcare/pharmaceutical industry commercial interests (HPIs)
• Health authority administration offices
• Disease-oriented patient advocacy organizations (e.g. Canadian Diabetes Association)
• Government departments or agencies (e.g. Health Canada, Public Health Agency of Canada)
• Small number of physicians working together to develop educational programming

Please note: Organizations who have not applied before may need to provide documentation demonstrating that the organization meets the eligibility criteria (e.g. terms of reference, bylaws, governance policies, meeting minutes).  This may extend processing time beyond the typical 4-6 weeks.  

Every CPD activity must have a Scientific Planning Committee (SPC) that is accountable to a fiscally responsible physician organization. The SPC is responsible for protecting the integrity of the learning environment and ensuring the activity complies with the UBC CPD Ethical Standards.

The SPC must:

• Include at least two practicing physicians  
• Be representative of the target audience
• Have a designated chair and  decision-making process
• Be familiar with accreditation requirements and responsibilities. See Read Documentation

SPC Responsibilities 

The SPC is responsible to:

• Uphold the UBC CPD Ethical Standards and have a process to identify and address instances of non-compliance (see Appendix C)
• Identify the learning needs of the intended target audience
• Develop learning objectives
• Select educational methods
• Select SPC members and content contributors (speakers, moderators, facilitators and/or authors)
• Develop and deliver content
• Evaluate outcomes
• Oversee logistics
• Review disclosures and mitigate conflicts of interest
• Ensure commercial sponsorship arrangements comply with accreditation standards

Note: Representatives of the healthcare and/or pharmaceutical industry (HPI) may not serve on the SPC or participate in decisions related to any aspect of the CPD activity.

Consult CHECKLIST & Forms to access the appropriate Declaration Forms.

Declaration forms are required for SPC members serving in designated accreditation roles. Only one individual is required for each role, although one qualifying physician may fulfill multiple roles.

Accountable Physician

Required for all programs. The accountable physician represents the physician organization and assumes responsibility for ensuring the activity complies with accreditation standards.

RCPSC Physician

Required for MOC credits. A member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) must serve on the SPC and have substantial involvement in program development.

UBC Faculty of Medicine (FoM) Physician

Required for Mainpro+ credits. A UBC Faculty of Medicine physician must serve on the SPC and have substantial involvement in program development.

CFPC Physician

Required for Mainpro+ credits. A physician member of the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) residing in British Columbia must serve on the SPC and represent the target audience of family physicians.

 PURPOSE

To ensure transparency and manage conflicts of interest (COI), all individuals involved in developing accredited CPD activities must disclose financial relationships, as required by the National Standard for Accredited CPD Activities. Disclosure helps ensure CPD remains evidence-based to serve patients rather than commercial or business interests.

WHAT TO DISCLOSE

Disclose all financial or in-kind relationships or interests from the past 24 months that could reasonably be perceived as having the potential to influence a CPD activity, regardless of dollar amount or your own assessment of relevance. 

This may include the following: 

Do I disclose my employer?

If you work for a university, public hospital, health authority, government agency, or other public or not-for-profit organization, you may list your employer in Column A if you wish. However, this form is intended to identify involvement with for-profit (and occasionally not-for-profit) organizations, businesses, products, services, or other interests that could benefit from the CPD activity or could reasonably be perceived as influencing its content, creating a conflict of interest. For example:

Not usually relevant:

• Employment with a university, hospital, health authority, government agency, or non-profit organization.
• Employment in a community clinic where the clinic has no financial interest related to the CPD activity.

Relevant:

• Physician employed by a private imaging clinic speaking about imaging referrals.
• Physician with product, service, or book to sell.
• Ownership or partnership in a clinic, business, product, app, or service related to the topic.

• Leadership or board roles in organizations that may benefit from the activity. 

   

See the CHECKLIST & Forms for the disclosure form.

For accreditation, the primary target audience must be physicians: family physicians, specialists, or both. Credit type is based on physician designation, not specialty area or scope of practice. Mainpro+ applies to family physicians and MOC applies to specialists.

To verify a physician's designation in BC, search the CPSBC Registrant Directory.

A needs assessment is a systematic process for identifying the nature and extent of learning needs within your target audience, along with the resources available to address them. These needs form the basis for your activity's objectives, content, and format. Learning needs are generally either perceived (self-recognized by the learner) or unperceived (gaps the learner isn't aware of), and a well-rounded needs assessment draws on sources from both categories:

See CFPC's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Quick Tips inclusive needs assessment methods and program design.

Define your target audience, their work environment or practice activities, and a valid professional practice gap identified through these methods. Consider not just clinical performance but the broader context shaping it — such as practice setting, patient population, and access to resources. Then assess current knowledge or skill level against the desired level, and note preferred learning styles.

Because disadvantaged or underrepresented groups within a target audience are often missing from routine data sources, the SPC should consider participatory methods, such as direct consultation with learners, to discover needs that standard evaluation summaries or survey data alone may miss. The strongest needs assessments draw on multiple methods and link identified needs to improved patient care.

To uncover the needs of the target audience, the SPC could discuss the following questions:
•    How common is the need among our target audience?
•    How many different assessment sources indicate this need?
•    How significantly will the unfulfilled need hinder health care delivery?
•    How directly is the need related to actual physician performance?
•    How likely is it that a CPD activity will improve practice behaviour?
•    Are sufficient resources available to address this topic effectively?
•    How receptive will our target audience be to this topic?
•    Does the target audience include groups whose needs may be underrepresented in existing data, and how will we capture their input?

See the CHECKLIST & Forms for a sample needs assessment and DEI considerations.

To be eligible for accreditation, the program must address at least one CanMEDS or CanMEDS-FM role and align it with the learning objectives.

CanMEDS and CanMEDS-FM are competency frameworks developed by the Canadian medical colleges that describe the knowledge, skills, and abilities physicians require to meet the healthcare needs of patients and communities:

All funds must be received and administered the physician organization. 

Accredited CPD activities should be financially self-sustaining and not operated to generate profit.

Most CPD activities are funded through registration fees, organizational support, and, where applicable, grants or sponsorship. Any surplus must remain with the physician organization and be used to support future CPD activities. Surplus funds must never be paid to an individual.

Budget

Submit a budget that identifies all funding sources as well as expenses, including any internal funding. The budget must indicate how any surplus or deficit will be managed.

See the CHECKLIST & Forms for a sample budget.

Sponsorship

If obtaining commercial sponsorship, follow Element 4 of the UBC CPD Ethical Standards. 
Note that when commercial sponsorship is being sought:

• Participants must be charged a registration fee of minimum $100/day.
• Only UBC CPD-approved sponsorship opportunities may be offered.
• All commercial sponsorship must be documented in a written agreement signed and countersigned by the physician organization and sponsor.
• The sponsorship agreement must reflect the approved sponsorship prospectus.

See CHECKLIST & Forms for: Sponsorship Agreement

See Financial Accountability

See the Overview page for important information about credit types, credit counts, and delivery frequency. 

NOTE: Following the CFPC's 2024 revision of assessment activity requirements, both MOC Section 1 and MOC Section 3 activities now align with Mainpro+ Certified credits (not Mainpro+ Certified Assessment credits).

Learning objectives must address the identified learning needs, be created for both the overall program and individual sessions, and be available to participants.

A learner-centred objective describes what participants will be able to do as a result of the learning activity. Review the list of action verbs when developing objectives.

Question to ask: “What will the learner be able to do after participating in this activity?”

Examples
Identify the inflammatory markers in AMD.
Recognize the predictors of diabetic retinopathy.
Describe the process of fluid detection by OCT.
Appraise difficult cases presented by members.

TIP: Avoid vague verbs such as understand, know, appreciate, familiarize, gain knowledge of, grasp, be aware of, comprehend, or learn about.

Design your CPD learning activity to address the professional practice gaps identified by the needs assessment.

​Create a detailed program with an agenda of topics, speakers, start and end times, question and answer/discussion periods, breaks, etc.

• Include the learner-centred objectives in the program
• Count credit hours by totaling the educational hours and subtracting the breaks
• Ensure the physician organization accountable for the program is clearly identifiable on all educational materials
• Relay the accreditation standards to all those developing content ("speaker communications")

Consult CHECKLIST & Forms for template

Inform Content contributors of Accreditation standards

The SPC must inform content contributors (e.g. presenters, authors, instructional designers, facilitators, moderators, etc.) of the requirements to:

• develop content and learning objectives based on the identified needs of the target audience [note: SPC should share identified needs with content contributors]
• develop learning objectives that are learner-centred
• create content and materials that provide (where applicable) a balanced view for therapeutic options related to the content area and reflect the current scientific literature
• describe therapeutic options using generic names (or both generic and trade) and not reflect exclusivity and branding
• declare any off-label use when making therapeutic recommendations for medications that have not received regulatory approval
• make every effort to avoid bias, whether commercial or other
• disclose all financial relationships with commercial and not-for-profit organizations
• presenters must disclose to learners both on slides and verbally
• include references to evidence used to create content
• adhere to time allotment, including time for interactivity such as Q & A
• ensure content and materials are available to the SPC for review prior to being made available to learners
• ensure content and materials meet professional standards and legal requirements, including the protection of privacy, confidentiality and copyright

Consult CHECKLIST & Forms to access the speaker communication (comms) template.

By now your program is ready to be reviewed for CPD credit approval.

Consult the CHECKLIST & Forms to ensure you have all of the required documentation and apply.

Applying via the online portal under Apply Here. 

Once your program has been approved, you will receive an approval email with your official accreditation/certification statement to be used on certificates and in marketing materials. UBC CPD forwards notification of approval of your activity to the appropriate medical college(s) so that physician may claim credits after attending.

Evaluation allows for the ongoing improvement of CPD programs and provides valuable feedback to program planners and faculty, and is a mandatory component of all accredited/certified programs. Learners must be provided with an opportunity to evaluate the CPD activity in a meaningful and confidential manner (but should not be required to complete an evaluation in order to obtain their CPD credits). 

Required evaluation questions

Please incorporate the following required evaluation questions into your existing evaluation strategy. NOTE: The first three questions are required for all programs; the rest are only required for specific credit/content types:

1. Did the program meet the stated learning objectives?   Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree
   Required wording for Mainpro+ credits:  As a result of completing this CPD activity I am confident in my ability to achieve the learning objectives. Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree
    
2. Were there any aspects of the program's content or delivery that appeared biased to you (e.g. financial, sponsor-related, cultural, gender, racial, or others)?  Yes   No | If yes, please describe: ___
   Alt: Did you perceive any degree of bias in this program or its delivery in either of the following categories: a) Bias towards external interests (financial or sponsor-related) Yes   No | If yes, please describe: ___ b) Bias for or against specific communities or groups (cultural, gender, racial or other) Yes   No | If yes, please describe: ___
    
3. Reflecting on the program content, what impact will this education have on your practice? Open text box
    
4. Required only if content covers treatments, medications, devices, etc. This education offered balanced views of diagnostic tools and/or therapeutic options.  Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree
    
5. Required for MOC credits: Which CanMEDS Role(s) were addressed during this CPD activity? Check all that apply: ☐ Medical Expert ☐ Communicator ☐ Collaborator ☐ Leader ☐ Health Advocate ☐ Professional ☐ Scholar 

See the CHECKLIST & Forms for: Evaluation templates.

Evaluation considerations

The following question can be used as a needs assessment for future activities: 

• Please suggest any topics or speakers you would like to see at future CPD activities. Open text box

If elements promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are considered in the program planning (e.g. including diverse and varied perspectives in planning, considering diverse needs of learners and patients they treat​, implementing an inclusive program design, considering accommodations for learners), remember to provide learners an opportunity to evaluate how well the program incorporated DEI principles. 

Dropped evaluation questions for Mainpro+

As of December 2024, the CFPC dropped the Quality Criteria that was Addressing Barriers , therefore this evaluation question is no longer required:

• Can you identify any barriers to incorporating what you learned into your practice? 

As of June 2018, these two questions are no longer required on evaluations for Mainpro+ programs:

• This CPD activity content enhanced my knowledge
• Indicate which CanMEDS-FM roles you felt were addressed Note: the CanMEDS question is still required for MOC accreditation!

The evaluation must include the question: “Did you perceive any degree of bias in any part of the program? Yes/No”. The responses to this question (ie. the number of yes, no and total responses) are to be forwarded to UBC CPD within 3 months of the event, via a brief email.

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