It always starts the same way. The year is fresh, the diary still smells of optimism, and you tell yourself that this will be the year you get your CPD points done early. You make a list, maybe even highlight a few promising webinars, and feel unreasonably proud of your adulting skills. For a moment, you are the picture of professional control.
Staying on top of your CPD can be tough.
Then reality sets in. Your calendar fills up with new patients, your admin pile grows into a geological formation, and suddenly it’s October. Someone casually mentions CPD points during tea break, and you freeze mid-sip. The coffee turns bitter, your stomach drops, and you whisper a silent prayer to the gods of online learning portals.
For us psychologists, and for all the rest of our colleagues like physiotherapists, biokineticists, OT’s, dietitians and in fact everyone in the health profession CPD is both a badge of honour and a recurring nightmare. It’s meant to celebrate continuous learning and professional growth. Instead, it often feels like an endurance sport involving dodgy Wi-Fi, endless logins, and a faint sense of existential dread.
Every profession has that one colleague who finished their points in March and speaks serenely about “staying ahead.” The rest of us are sprinting through webinars at 11:57 p.m. on December 29th, desperately trying to stay awake through an ethics module narrated by someone who sounds like they’re reading a tax return. You click through slides, score 80% on the post-test, and feel like you’ve climbed Kilimanjaro.
The struggle doesn’t end there. You download your certificate, save it as “CPD 2025 FINAL FINAL,” and file it in a folder that will immediately vanish into the void. Weeks later, when your professional board announces an audit, you’ll find yourself hunched over your computer, digging through subfolders with names like “Stuff Maybe Important” and “HELP.” By hour two, you start bargaining with the universe.
And then there’s the bureaucracy. The CPD portal, supposedly a marvel of modern technology, moves with the speed of dial-up internet circa 1998. You try to upload a certificate, but the page freezes just as your hope peaks. You try again, this time switching browsers, muttering technical advice you learned from your teenage nephew. Eventually, you succeed — and feel a surge of triumph usually reserved for Olympic athletes and IT support staff.
The topics themselves can be a lottery. You’re spoiled for choice between “Updates in Spinal Biomechanics” and “Ethical Record-Keeping in a Digital Age.” You tell yourself you’ll do something inspiring. Two minutes later, you’re clicking on the shortest one with the least number of slides because you’re still wearing your clinic shoes and it’s already dark outside.
And let’s not pretend the costs don’t sting. By the time you’ve added up the webinars, the workshops, and the “admin fees,” you realise you could have paid for a weekend away — complete with actual relaxation, something your nervous system probably needs more than another ethics quiz.
Still, somehow, we make it. Every cycle. We chase the points, battle the portals, and eventually receive that blessed “You are CPD compliant” confirmation. It feels like passing a test you didn’t study for but somehow aced anyway. Beneath the comedy of errors lies something admirable — proof that despite the chaos, you’re still learning, still showing up, still trying to do better for your patients.
CPD isn’t about Points.
Because at the end of the day, CPD isn’t really about points. It’s about staying curious in a profession that never stops changing, about keeping your mind sharp even when your laptop isn’t. It’s about the quiet pride in knowing that between treating tendons, decoding insurance codes, and surviving portal crashes, you’re still growing.
Imagine CPD was combined with fun dinners or you got to paint your own award plate, like at clay café! That would certainly get me motivated!
When next year rolls around, you’ll probably say it again – this time you’ll do it early. You won’t, of course. But at least you’ll laugh about it with everyone else, coffee in hand, as another great CPD chase begins.