Continuing Professional Development (CPD) now seems to be the ubiquitous mantra for all elements of professional and para-professional existence. The problem is that few will be able to define what it s and why it is so important. Also, the confusion between Continuing Professional Education (CPE) and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) will always muddy the water – different people will extract different interpretations for different end point reasons. Is it about inherent and self driven professional development through self betterment – or is it something to do with regulation and control?

One of the challenges may be to accept the status of the Remote Health Care Practitioner as an emergent health professional in their own right. If this is to be argued, then with rights come responsibilities and so there will need to be a coordinated promotion of the status and role of the practitioner in that they deserve Professional status. So what might define a professional? This is a definition that I used in earlier published works:

‘…a professional is an expert or master of that branch of work controlled by that profession’

So quite a distance to go to even achieve that definition.

The acceptance of a professional brings with it a high level societal expectation and also expectation to submit to the critical judgement of fellow practitioners and peers. Within the supporting educational process are educational or developmental ‘wants’ and ‘needs’. Both are important, but can have either inherent or external professional precipita. In any branch of health care, there is a need to contextualise and elaborate learning. Contextualising suggests the need to link theory to practice and elaborating means to relate what is currently being learned to what is already known. This concurs with standard views of professional education.

To look at CPE in isolation is however, to miss the broader issues. CPE will always tend to focus in on the problem – and may miss entirely the context of the problem, which may be the greatest influence on its resolution. The broader term ‘Continuing Professional Development’ is now more accepted and this can address the contextual issues in terms of both practice and wider organisational need as well as individual development. However, as we all work within increasingly complex organisations, difficulties start to emerge to ensure all the different influences are fulfilled and highly skilled leadership and facilitation is then required.

IRHC members have access to a thought provoking discussion paper penned by Dr Malcolm Valentine IRHC Journal Editor, who is a leading authority with regard to “remote practitioner” CPD. To access this document IRHC members can log into the IRHC “Members Area”.