If you’re working within the clinical research industry you’ll be well used to using a wide range of acronyms on a daily basis, but have you heard of CPD before and do you know how to manage it?

 

CPD (Continuous Professional Development) is something that all of us should be doing in order to comply with GCP, which states that “Each individual involved in conducting a trial should be qualified by education, training, and experience to perform his or her respective task(s)”.  However, CPD isn’t just about attending a training course on a particular job-related area and obtaining and filing away another certificate.  In order to stay appropriately qualified and at the top of our fields, each of us needs to manage our CPD proactively; considering how, when and where to invest time, money and energy in our professional development.

 

Apart from the need to manage our CPD to conform to GCP, there are other obvious benefits of proactively managing our professional development.  These may include enabling us to do our current jobs better, job enhancement and enrichment, career progression, increased pay, promotion or a side step into a different role.

 

Many professionals, unfortunately do not prioritise their CPD and instead leave it in the hands of their manager or wait until their appraisal until they speak up about a training course they may wish to attend.  However, whilst there are some obvious benefits to management of putting certain people through certain learning situations, ultimately the person whose career will benefit or suffer the most is the one who does or doesn’t do the development task.

 

So how do you go about deciding what and how to learn?  Where do you invest your valuable time, money and energy?  In order to answer these questions, you will first need to conduct a personal learning needs analysis.  There is no right or wrong way of doing this, but here are some questions that you may want to consider:

¨ Am I up to date with GCP and recent legislation?

¨ Are there any aspects of my job that I’m finding challenging?

¨ What aspects of my communication skills could I improve upon?

¨ How would others rate my interpersonal skills?

¨ What job would I like to be doing a few years from now and what learning gaps do I need to fill in order to gain the relevant skills, experience and qualifications?

¨ What are my interests and what do I enjoy doing?

¨ What training do my colleagues, direct reports and manager think I could benefit from?

 

We all know that training can be expensive, however don’t get disheartened if your development list is huge and your budget doesn’t fit.  Training courses are only part of the spectrum of learning and development opportunities available.  Other opportunities may include shadowing, coaching, project work, research, talking to others about what they do, reading, mentoring, etc, etc.

 

So once you have your list of development areas, prioritise them and then consider what options are available to you to enable you to fill each learning gap and discuss options with your line manager if appropriate.

 

When you’ve decided what development areas you want to concentrate on, put your priority list into a plan and put your plan somewhere you will see it on a regular basis so that you don’t lose sight of your goals.  This should at least include:

¨ What you want to learn?

¨ Why you want to learn it?

¨ How you intend to utilise your new skills or knowledge?

¨ How and where you will learn it?

¨ What resources and support you will need?

¨ By when?

 

CROs and pharmas will have their own procedures for keeping individual’s training records and it is vital that you comply with your own organisation’s SOPs.  However, you may also wish to keep a simple separate record of your own CPD for personal use; this could combine professional and non-professional learning experiences and may include: 

¨ Date

¨ Learning experience

¨ Key learning points

¨ Further action(s) required (consider this after the learning experience)

 

Finally, if all this isn’t enough to inspire you to take control of your CPD, remember that learning is good for your brain and helps to keep your mental age young (remember the TV advert for the Nintendo DS).  When it comes to learning and mental ability the age old saying “use it or lose it” could not be truer.  Learning enhances the formation and survival of new brain cells, which are approximately three times more active.  Proof that brains really do love learning!

 

 

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Article by Jacqueline Johnson

Managing Director, Dovetail Training Ltd

 

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Adapted from an article produced by Jacqueline for the ACDM