Message from the Registrar
Council workshops interns on Continuing Professional Development
The pre-registration year is an important milestone in the training of pharmacists – it is during this year that young pharmacists transition from being students to assuming the responsibilities that come with the calling of being pharmacy professionals. Interns are required to partake in and submit records of eight continuing professional development activities (CPDs) during their internship year.
In the interest of increased compliance with CDP requirements and competent recording of CDP activities, the Office of the Registrar organised CPD workshops targeted at interns and their tutors throughout South African’s nine provinces, during March. This was pursuant to the South African Pharmacy Council implementing online verification of intern CPDs by tutors in January 2018.
Invitations to the workshops were extended to all interns and tutors through direct communication methods (including SMS and email) as well as our social media platforms. The workshops proved very popular, with an overwhelming majority of all interns and tutors attending workshops in their provinces.
During the workshops, interns were trained on how to navigate through the online CPD system in order to submit their CPDs for verification by tutor, while tutors were trained on assessing CPD submissions, redirecting CPD entries back to interns (where shortcomings are identified) and submitting satisfactory CPD entries to Council for assessment.
Interns were encouraged to submit their CPDs prior to the submission dates published in the manual so as to allow their tutors time to verify and submit their CPDs. Once CPDs are submitted, they are assessed, moderated and released as per the schedule published in the 2018 Intern/Tutor Manual.
As part of pre-registration evaluation, current pharmacist interns are required to submit eight CPD entries by 29 October 2018 and must be competent in six CPD entries, if they want to complete their internship by 31 December 2018 and/or progress to Community Pharmaceutical Service in January 2019. CPDs submitted after 29 October 2018 will be assessed, moderated and released in February 2019.
Tutors, responsible pharmacists, Heads of Pharmaceutical Services (HOPs) and other pharmacists are encouraged to assist and support the interns in adhering to the prescribed deadlines for submissions of CPDs.
The 2018 Intern/Tutor Manual and CPD Workshop Presentation 2018 are available on the SAPC website: www.sapc.za.org.
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