CFPCLearn: anytime, anywhere, by FPs, for FPs

Francine Lemire; Jeff Sisler; G. Michael Allan

doi:10.46747/cfp.6702146

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to introduce CFPCLearn this month, the College’s new online learning program. Family practice is a complex field; the single-disease–centred clinical practice guidelines are not always applicable to the patients we see. Running a family practice with other colleagues and team members also presents unique challenges. Continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities in person (in non-pandemic times) and online abound. So, what is different about CFPCLearn?

High-quality, pharma-free content on-demand: CFPCLearn is an online platform that includes a menu of options for family doctors to keep up to date. This includes Tools for Practice (read and short exercise; 0.25 credits each), Choose your Briefs (“Jeopardy”-style videos and exercises for 15 minutes; 0.25 credits each), podcasts (podcasts with notes; 0.5 to 1 credit), mini-series (3 to 5 short webinars, 30 minutes each with a mix of presentation and panel discussion worth 1.5 to 2.5 credits), Instructional Design (larger course with reading and interactivity; 2 to 7 credits), as well as recorded webinars and conferences (1 credit). While most content is in English, Tools for Practice, some webinars, and Choose your Briefs will have French-language content.

This initiative is collaborative: CFPCLearn is the result of a new partnership between the CFPC, several Chapters (Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, at the moment), and the PEER Group (Tools for Practice, Simplified Guidelines) to create knowledge translation tools and CPD for family physicians. We are pleased to be able to work together to develop online learning with relevant content and make it available on a pan-Canadian basis.

Family doctors are involved in its development: Coauthor Dr Mike Allan, a family doctor well known for his ability to create family medicine–specific and relevant content, leads this new CPD initiative. The team working with him brings expertise in curating relevant information for busy family doctors that respects the ways in which we work and mixes fun with learning. The CFPC is also establishing a national Guideline and Knowledge Translation Expert Working Group of family physicians that will review guidelines submitted for endorsement, set standards for content on CFPCLearn, adjudicate any content that is questionable, and suggest future Tools for Practice and guideline subjects to the PEER Group. This group will ensure that guidelines for family practice are relevant, evidence based, and practical.

Your CPD credits are sent directly to your Mainpro+ account: All content in CFPCLearn is Mainpro+ certfied. Strict rules are in place to ensure that review for Mainpro+ certification is at arms length from content development and that conflicts of interest are avoided.

A tradition of CPD: The CFPC has been an important provider of CPD to family physicians for decades. Our first national “ASA” (Annual Scientific Assembly), now Family Medicine Forum, was offered in 1957. The CFPC’s provincial Chapters have offered high-quality CPD with province-specific content for decades. The year 2020 marked the 35th anniversary of Self Learning. Published 6 times a year both in print and online, Self Learning offers a mix of multiple-choice questions and short-answer management problems to engage participants in reflecting on the management of core conditions in family practice using recent studies and publications. Now CFPCLearn joins this tradition of high-quality learning created by family physicians, for family physicians.

High-quality, pharma-free CPD at a reasonable price: CFPCLearn will be available to our members at the reasonable cost of $299 per year, similar to Self Learning, and to non-members at the cost of $399. While high-quality CPD can be costly to produce, CFPCLearn offers a wide variety of learning formats, speakers, and topics to provide high-quality, industry-free CPD to suit any taste, at a rate per credit well below typical registration costs. We are confident that you will find CFPCLearn a good investment in your learning.