Promoting health, wellbeing, and sustainable high performance is an important component to professional development. As such shouldn’t it be eligible for CME credits?
A common element of all medical practices irrespective of the specialty or type of healthcare professional is the licensing requirement for continuing medical education (CME) credits. Depending on the nature of the license, this may be annual or less frequent but is nonetheless required in order to maintain a license in good standing. Various medical specialty boards also have CME credit requirements. As such, it is necessary in order to practice as a healthcare professional to obtain on a regular cycle a sufficient number of CME credits.
While the idea behind the need for CME credits is well intentioned and, presumably, focused on ensuring professionals continue to develop their knowledge base and stay up to date with the latest and emerging research, the reality can often be different. While these positive attributes regarding the collection of CME credits do exist, so too does the accumulation of credits through courses, self-assessment exams, and other modalities that are not related to the individual’s area of practice. In this scenario, the healthcare professional is not furthering relevant information or updating their knowledge of pertinent research as it pertains to their practice or professional development. They are solely obtaining credits in order to meet licensing and certification requirements.
In addition to the issue of relevance of the information covered in the various CME activities are the considerations of cost and time. Without question, many of these CME credit modalities require substantial amounts of time to review and learn information and complete, if necessary, self-assessment evaluations. In addition, these activities are frequently expensive.
To summarize the above, healthcare professionals often spend large amounts of money and time to obtain CME credits required for licensure that may not be related to their area of practice. While it is understandable that they do so, it is also an unfortunate circumstance. It should be emphasized that this situation is not of the making of the healthcare professionals. Rather it is a obligation placed upon them and they are trying to meet these requirements in the best way they are able.
The polyvagal informed Practices of the Healthcare Athlete promote health, wellbeing, and sustainable high performance through the development of mind-based and body-based skills and strategies. This is highly applicable not only to the specific area of practice of healthcare professionals but to all areas of life. In essence, the learning and integration of these strategies is highly complementary with the intention of CME, specifically to promote professional development that will positively impact the individual’s ability to perform their clinical role. In addition, these polyvagal informed strategies will be highly beneficial across all areas of the healthcare professional’s life.
Given the importance of these skills and strategies, wouldn’t it make sense for this learning to be included within CME activities and accumulation of credits? In my opinion it would be completely consistent with the intention behind these activities. Not only will participating healthcare professionals obtain important information, skills, and strategies to benefit their practice and patients, but also themselves as individuals and their colleagues, staff, friends, and families.
With this rationale in mind, I am excited to announce that in the near future all articles within The Practices of the Healthcare Athlete will be eligible for CME credits! The cost will be low and the time required to obtain the credits will not be excessive. In essence, this will be a cost-effective, time-effective, and highly relevant manner in which to obtain CME credits. Further details will be provided as this program launches and it is also anticipated that following the start of this initiative, other related activities in other formats will also be available and eligible for CME credits.
To ensure that you stay up to date with the rollout of this activity and you are ready to obtain eligible CME credits, subscribe to the Substack and related blog at www.darindavidson.com, where more information can also be found regarding polyvagal informed coaching for healthcare professionals.
