Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is the planned acquisition of knowledge throughout ones working life. The aim of the program is to offer a broad and well- structured development of professional and personal qualities in tandem with needs of competence for the clinical activity.

The medical physicist is personally responsible for the maintenance and enhancement of his/her knowledge, skills and professional competence. The CPD program gives the medical physicist the opportunity to clearly demonstrate his/her contribution to the requirements of the clinical work in an optimal way. Participant in the program will acquire a formal record of personal performance.

The objectives are to formalise the activities arranged by institutions, companies and medical physicists, to a high quality and extent.

The CPD program has the following objectives:

The benefits of CPD accrue both to the individual and to the employer. The association to the program should be a joint decision. The reasons why individuals should undertake CPD, and why employers should strongly encourage them to do so, include the following:

Shorter product cycles and faster obsolescence of product processes, caused by scientific, technological and market changes, are making knowledge and professional expertise out- of- date more rapidly than ever before.

The basic training to become a medical physicist is of high quality but develops continuously. A medical physicist in a senior position will have great benefit from the program.

Medical physicists constitute a costly human resource in which a high investment has already been made. In the long run their skills and knowledge must be kept at their peak to justify this investment.

The increasing complexity in the clinical activity means that risk of breach of duty increases. Continuing formal education and re(training) is an essential component of an employers defence against wrong diagnosis and malpractice.

The increasing satisfaction of the employee knowing that (s)he is doing his/her job to the greatest benefit to the patient.

The ascertain of the employee that s(he) is doing his/her job to the best of his/her ability gives the confidence necessarily to perform an independent work of great responsibility in the team work.

The continuing formal education is enhancing the career of the employee and the direction of the education is established in collaboration with the employer.

The competitiveness of the employer is to a great extent depending on the qualifications of the employees. The total knowledge and the direction of the education are important for the long-term lasting and flexible development of the clinical activity. The CPD program is a tool to be used, by the employer in collaboration with the employee, to plan the need and the direction of knowledge in short and long term view. The costs of not doing CPD far outweigh the cost of CPD.

The CPD program is established for registered medical physicists, but separate training activities are accessible for other professions.

The participator shall in collaboration with the employer, establish a CPD plan. The plan shall identify the knowledge, skills, understanding and attitudes to be acquired or developed, taking into account:

The participant shall identify the actions to be taken, to meet the identified needs. Review and development of the plan shall be done annually in conjunction with the employer.

The CPD board consist of 5 members. The CPD board shall, to the greatest possible extent, reflect the geographic and professional spread of the Medical Physicists in Sweden. The constitution comprises:

The members are elected for a period of 3 years. The CPD board is an executive agency responsible for maintenance and development of the CPD program and shall work in accordance with the general outlines in this document. The Swedish Society of Radiation Physics board arranges an annual meeting where the constitution of the CPD board and the direction of the work by the CPD board are decided. The CPD board summarizes the work that has been done during the year and proposes the aims for the following year. The CPD board and the Swedish Medical Physics Society board shall be invited in due time to the annual meeting.

“The application form for CPD” should be completed and returned to the secretary of the CPD board.

The most important aspect of CPD is rather the result of the CPD activity than the duration.

The following quantitative guidelines are suggested:

A minimum of 50 points of formally agreed and recorded CPD should be undertaken each year, a 5 year rolling average of 50 points per annum.

The activities should give the individual a broad base for development

The “annual summary of CPD points”form should be completed by each participant in the CPD program together with the employer (summarized in categories 1-2) and returned to the secretary of the CPD board before April 1 st.

The CPD-board will make a review of the “annual summary of CPD points”. The participants will be informed on the results of this review and the points accepted. The CPD points for each participant is summarized by the CPD board every five years.

The members of the CPD board shall meet at least once a year, to review the summaries of CPD points and to maintain and further develop the CPD system.

Related subjects such as updating the course catalogue and adapting any requests for specific courses can be managed by distance meetings.

The CPD board will report to, and request resources for the CPD system from the Swedish Society of Radiation Physics board. The Swedish Society of Radiation Physics board stipulates the financial frames for the CPD board.

The organizer of a course will pay an amount of 5000 SEK to the Swedish Society of Radiation Physics for the management of the CPD board. The CPD board reviews and awards points to the course and will announce the course by using e-mail lists and adding it to the program catalogue.

The CPD boards duty is to maintain a course catalogue that contains activities from each professional discipline respectively. This means, among other things, to search for qualified educational systems. The program catalogue shall facilitate a continuing improvement of the educational events and to be a dynamic base for the members CPD activities.

Occasional educational activity is reported to the CPD board secretary on the “template for occasional educational activity”.

Recurrent educational activity is reported to the CPD board secretary on the” template for recurrent educational activity”.

The CPD program had been produced in collaboration between the Swedish Medical Physics Society and the Swedish Society of Radiation Physics.