29 Jan 2020
Why Continued Professional Development is important to MedCo
Continuous training and development is a vital part of any medical career, especially when training and development can open up new opportunities for work. Dr Dan Bunstone is the lead GP of a practice in a high growth area of Warrington, Chief Medical Officer for Speed Medical and a member of our Clinical Advisory Board. Following his recent article about the NHS crisis, Dr Bunstone explores the need to stay on top of Continued Professional Development (CPD) in order to maintain MedCo accreditation.
Meeting training deadlines
The MedCo CPD training cycle is now over halfway through for this year, giving us until the end of May 2020 to ensure we've kept ourselves up to date and able to produce high quality, compliant medical reports.
There's a minimum of six hours of training required per year for Continued Professional Development, with much of the training being available online. MedCo has supplied 12 hours of online learning through their portal, which is effectively good enough for two years worth of accreditation. However, I'm not suggesting to stick to the minimum requirement. Keeping ourselves up to date is a vital task for any medical expert, and now there is the added incentive of not being allowed to continue with your MedCo registration unless the training is complete. If you've not started the training yet, I'd suggest making a start as soon as you can.
Maintaining MedCo accreditation
The format on the MedCo site is different as it is mainly video-based coupled with transcripts and reference material. It’s intuitive, interesting and focused on the work you'll be undertaking as an expert. This will support you in making those difficult decisions that sometimes come to us as medical experts.
To stay registered with MedCo and continue working as a MedCo-accredited expert, you must complete the minimum of six hours of CPD. While there are only four months remaining to get this done it couldn’t be any easier to do, especially as everything you need is on the MedCo website.
I’d encourage you to go further with the training. Consider completing all of the online modules plus at least one face-to-face meeting per year. This will put you in the best possible position to be offering high-quality medicolegal reports.
By taking the time to complete training, especially before the end of the MedCo training cycle, you are able to maintain your registration and accreditation - allowing you to keep working on cases and providing high-quality, impartial reports. Training should be a constant part of your role as a medical expert - not only does it help you maintain access to professional bodies like MedCo, but it also keeps you at the forefront of your profession and striving to be the best you can be.
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