Continuing professional development opportunities for Australian endorsed for scheduled medicines podiatrists-What's out there and is it accessible, relevant, and meaningful? A cross-sectional survey.

Background: Non-medical prescribing is a valuable strategy to enable equitable access to medications in the context of the increasing demands on health services globally. Australian podiatrists have been able to seek endorsement for scheduled medicines (ESM) for over a decade. This project investigates the perceptions and habits of ESM podiatrists in meeting the extra continuing professional development (CPD) requirements associated with their ESM status.

Methods: Australian ESM podiatrists completed an anonymous, online survey capturing demographics; CPD engagement; and self-reflections of CPD activities.

Results: Twenty percent (n = 33) of Australian ESM registered podiatrists (N = 167) responded to the survey (18 female; median ESM status 2.5 years, (IQR 1.0, 9.0)). For the previous registration period, 88% (n = 29) completed the mandatory CPD hours, with only 35% (n = 11) completing a CPD learning goal plan. Over 80% identified their last ESM CPD activity as accessible, affordable, and could recommend to colleagues. Conversely, 50% or less agreed the activity increased confidence; changed their practice; improved communication skills; or enabled networking. Most respondents (81%, n = 27) indicated improvements should be made to the content, relevance, accessibility, and meaningfulness of CPD. These findings were supported by responses to the open-ended questions.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest ESM podiatrists engage in CPD that is accessible rather than learning goal driven. Concerningly, CPD activities resulted in low translation of learnings to practice. This brings in to question the value of mandatory CPD systems based on minimum hours, rather than meaningfulness.