It’s that time of the appraisal year, isn’t it, when many of us look at the CPD credit total on our eportfolio and think, hmm, how can I dredge up 25 hours of GP education in the 24 hours remaining before I’m supposed to submit it?
Easy. Just consider how much time you’ve taken preparing for your appraisal. All those hours digesting, documenting, digging, downloading, developing and so on. Probably 12 hours in total. That time, in itself – I’ve recently discovered – can count towards your CPD credits. This I worked out by having a bit of a think to myself and then having a bit of a chat with my appraiser, who confirmed it was all perfectly legit. And I realised that this think and this chat took a while, as well – about half the preparation time, which meant another six hours could be added to my total. Working this out in my own mind, and confirming the probity of it all to the satisfaction of my own moral compass took half that time again – another three credits. And realising that I could and should claim those three credits, and recording that fact, as I am now, is not labour neutral, either – it’s taken another one and a half hours of serious reflection.
In other words, thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking about appraisal is very much like the old tale of the frog who is trying to get from one side of a pond to another and, each time, jumps half the remaining distance. He never quite gets there, but he gets damn close.
By my reckoning, you’re now at 22.5 hours. To which you can add the CPD value of this blog: 2.5 hours. Bingo. Just explain that you’re a deep thinker, but a slow reader.
Dr Tony Copperfield is a GP in Essex. You can email him at tonycopperfield@hotmail.com and follow him on Twitter @DocCopperfield.
