First a big thank you to Naomi McVey, Janet Thomas, Paula Manning and Jack Chew who made our session great.
It's been a while since I was on stage at the Digital CPD Focused Symposium at Physiotherapy UK 2019 in Birmingham. It has taken me a while to sit down and complete this post, but now I am here and will be writing about some of the topics covered in the lecture and during the Q&A. The goal of my lecture was to explain why I am passionate about digital CPD and what Physioplus is all about, and finally briefly compare two e-portfolio platforms, the CSP-E portfolio and Physioplus from Physiopedia.
Why I love digital CPD
By optimizing knowledge transfer I understand the digital CPD. It offers incredible value for money and is accessible all over the world, which means that it is leveling out for people in different socio-economic areas (including Physioplus as discounts are available). This way we can connect with colleagues that we normally cannot.
Linking our global profession gives us access to clinical thinking that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do. It also helps to smash academic and scientific racism – something I can hardly believe was based on our profession.
If we look at these thoughts as they relate to Physioplus, there were over 75,000 interprofessional forum posts at the time of writing the presentation. The wealth of knowledge in these forums is incredible and unmatched. Even reading some forums will change your perspective on a number of things and encourage you to think creatively. For example, do we take trauma – elephant attacks as the cause of fractures?
The optimization does not end with the provision of educational content. Digital platforms can be easily updated and corrected as new insights become available, while traditional CPD methods are often out of date at the time of writing and rely on careful moderators to continually update their content.
The real challenge for online and offline content remains the same – the application of theoretical knowledge to one's own practice. This is of course the advantage of personal education, but there is a scenario in which online learning can complement one another. Think about whether you want to take a weekend course on manual therapy, where you spend half the theoretical and the other half of the practical time. Why not mix the two and do the theory before the practice day and have more time to do the practical thing face to face? This is the epitome of knowledge optimization – online and offline education work together in our profession.
Microdosing of professional development
"Microdosing" from CPD means taking part in very frequent small learning events as an alternative to a "macrodosing" of learning over a fixed and longer period. I'm not saying that one is better than the other since both are normal learning methods, but technology is changing the way we deal with both.
Getting in and out of a virtual learning environment is easier than ever. This applies in particular to Twitter and the Physiopedia app, which are available around the clock and offer constantly updated and dynamic environments.
There is growing concern that, although we can access all of this information, we are overly reliant on instant information that disrupts diagnostic thinking and clinical understanding. There is also the argument that microdosing CPD and reference apps only enables superficial learning and knowledge and is not committed to memory. Personally, I'm not sure if this is the case. What we see is a further development of our way of working, and perhaps the physiotherapy training should be available as part of the clinical thought process.
For me, the solution is a learning strategy called active recall – something that is built into flashcard apps like Anki or Quizlet – that I would like to see in the Physiopedia app. In a way, it is similar to the tests already available, but this is the next step.
As an example of this entire process: Suppose I look at a knee x-ray and am not sure whether there is an abnormality or not. I can look up the relevant information to confirm or refute my suspicions, use that information clinically at the moment, cope with my patient, and then think about the case later in the day and create an index card with active recall.
Keeping the balance
The work of Professir Marie Asberg in Sweden has shown that our brain cannot distinguish between employment-related tasks and other work-like tasks such as planning activities, competitive hobbies or social media. This is related to the increasing burnout rate and is particularly important in connection with the microdosing of CPD and social media.
Separate professional and personal accounts create boundaries between work and fun, thereby reducing the risk of burnout. For example, I use Whatsapp for personal chat, Siilo for professional chat, a professional Twitter account and Physioplus for e-learning.
Boundaries between social and professional are also important for professional etiquette, since there is less risk of accidentally sending a message to the wrong group or of getting into unprofessional public arguments.
Document CPD – Why not digitize?
During my talk I briefly compared the CSP's e-portfolio system and the Physioplus platform. In my opinion, there isn't really a lot of competition here as the Physioplus platform is feature rich, includes clinically relevant courses created by experts in their field, clean and easy to use, while the CSP offering is chunky, unintuitive and is equipped with some sketchy privacy settings. The Physiplus platform is excellent and I am not surprised as it was created by the most underrated person in our profession – Tony Lowe.
The privacy concerns on the CSP platform were particularly worrying because I could easily see private considerations and documents created by others using the portfolio. It was difficult to change the settings and it is unclear whether you can make your account private. I don't think I have to explain why this is a serious problem. I informed the CSP of my concerns a few months ago, but I haven't heard from them on the subject. One can rightly say that this would never happen with Physioplus!
With this link you can watch my presentation in full.
