Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Housemanship Training Requirements
What this domain tests
Questions cover the twelve-month housemanship and the CPD obligations linked to annual licence renewal.
Housemanship requirements
- Housemanship must be served in an MDCN-accredited hospital under supervision, with provisional registration held for the internship year.
- Interns rotate through the major clinical disciplines: medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, and paediatrics; dental interns rotate through oral and maxillofacial surgery, restorative dentistry, orthodontics and allied units.
- A logbook records procedures and competencies, signed by the supervising consultant.
- A Certificate of Experience from the hospital supports the application for full registration.
CPD
- CPD is mandatory and is checked at annual practising licence renewal.
- Credit points are earned through accredited conferences, workshops, online modules, journal clubs and self-directed learning; the Council's CPD guideline sets the annual minimum and the balance between formal and informal activities.
- Practitioners keep evidence such as certificates and attendance records and may be audited.
Worked example
An intern completes twelve months but her logbook lacks signed entries for obstetrics. The hospital withholds the Certificate of Experience until the missing rotation is documented, so she cannot move to full registration. The reasoning: completion is proved by supervised, documented training, not by time served alone.
Traps
- Counting locum or unsupervised work as housemanship.
- Assuming CPD is optional, or that one conference satisfies the year.
- Confusing provisional registration held during internship with full registration.