CPA Bulletin: February 2003

Over 12 hours of accredited video footage captured live at the Canadian Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting will be offered online this year. It will be part of a CPA pilot program based on recently released Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) criteria for online Maintenance of Certification (MOC) Section 1 programming.

Canadian experts such as Dr. John Bradford, Dr. Sidney Kennedy, Dr. Raymond Lam, Dr. Lakshmi Yatham and Dr. Ari Zaretsky will lead sessions focusing on bipolar disorder, personality disorders, law and psychiatry, depression, and sleep and anxiety disorders. The sessions will be made available for time-limited periods on a rolling schedule, each probably running for six to eight weeks. If well received, the sessions may be repeated later in the year. While this material will be available online to all psychiatrists, CPA members will be able to access the programs at special reduced rates. To comply with the new MOC criteria, participants need only register online, submit a question after viewing the program and optionally participate in a moderated online forum to discuss other participants’ questions and answers.

When the extended pilot program ends, the CPA will invite evaluations from all registered participants to determine whether the program should be extended and renewed.

Based on this feedback, selected sessions from the CPA Ski-CPD conference in Mont Tremblant and the ICPD conference in Puerto Vallarta may also be offered later in the year. The Ski-CPD conference, “New Perspectives in Depression,” is scheduled for Feb. 13–16. The ICPD, “Practical Approaches to Current Issues in Psychiatry,” runs from Feb. 24–28. A complete schedule of forthcoming accredited online events will be posted on the CPA Web site at www.cpa-apc.org and also published in the CPD section of the bi-monthly CPA Bulletin.

This new Section 1 eligible material will be the latest addition to the CPA’s online continuing education resources. Current resources include an accredited psychiatric self-assessment test with 50 questions, available free to members. When completed, this test qualifies for up to 12 credits under Section 3 of the MOC program. As well, members can still view more than 60 hours of video footage from the 2000 and 2001 Annual Meetings for credit under Section 2 or use it as resource material for personal learning projects under Section 4. The footage is free to members and is accessed via the members-only area of the CPA Web site.

The RCPSC established the MOC program in 2001 to ensure that medical specialists participate in professional development activities that enhance the quality of patient care. Professional development activities are separated into six areas or sections: accredited group learning activities; other learning activities; accredited self-assessments; structured learning projects; practice review and appraisal; and educational development, teaching and research. Higher credit values are assigned to sections with greater impact on actual practice.