As I get older I think I’m becoming more last minute.com. I recently zapped my CPD records to the General Pharmaceutical Council – just in time for 31 October deadline. Perhaps I should be more compare the supermarket.com? Now I have revalidated for 2018 my mygphc.org account has re-set to what I need to do in the next 12 months. There are new things to think about.
I work at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) as Head of Workforce Development looking at the standards, guidance, and policies that will develop our profession. Having been involved in the RPS approach to supporting its members with revalidation I thought I should write a blog about my own journey with staying on the register. Each month I will cover different aspects of a new additional way us pharmacists have to keep our knowledge and skills up-to-date – the peer discussion. The what, who, where and how.
The Peer Discussion is the first of two new elements that I have to submit by 31 October 2019. The other being the reflective account. The peer discussion is my opportunity to chat to someone about how I approach professional development and improving my practice for the benefit of my service users. Like the CPD records, it is about reflective practice except I’ll be ‘doing it’ with someone else but for myself (sounds like an Aretha Franklin song). So my discussion will need to focus on an area of my practice (or more broadly about my role) and what I need to learn to improve it.
I’m not very good at talking about myself but at least I get to choose what I can talk about - as long as it’s about work! Although it’s not about my performance at work, neither is it an assessment about how much I know (or don’t know) so I’m not nervous about it – it should be valuable to me. I know colleagues who took part in the GPhC’s revalidation pilot, they commented that they enjoyed the peer discussion (not because it was a chat in a pub but because it helped them think about how they could develop). I just need to find someone to help my approach to keeping-up-to-date.com….but that’s next month’s instalment.
Read more of Chris’s Peer Discussion Blogs:
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