Balance

Almost 600 registrants tested the Self-Reflective Assessment Tool, Stage 1, and most went on to complete a follow-up survey.

We then invited Stage 1 participants to use their results to draw up a Continuing Professional Development Plan, Stage 2 of the PSP. These registrants were invited to complete a second short survey regarding the instructions provided, the usefulness of the Learning Resource Guide, and other aspects of Stage 2.

More than 250 registrants completed this second survey. We were pleased that 84% of respondents felt that sufficient information and instruction had been provided, allowing them to use their Stage 1 results to develop a Stage 2 Continuing Professional Development Plan. Most respondents prefer using templates in digital form or online, and 77% are comfortable enough with the 14 Career-span Competencies (CSCs), and the PSP framework as a whole, to develop learning objectives that are suited to them.

The survey responses and additional input provided by these registrants has been invaluable in helping the College fine-tune the PSP and we thank you!

Incorporating PSP into CE program

Our intent has always been that the PSP eventually replace the current Continuing Competency Program requirement of completing a fixed minimum of 50 CE hours in a reporting period.

We would like to let you know now that components of the Practice Support Program will be incorporated into the Continuing Competency CE Program starting in April 2022.

Registrants starting a new CE cycle in April 2022 must complete the Self-Reflective Assessment from April to August 2022, during the first 5 months of the CE cycle. In this way, registrants will be able to use the resulting assessment to plan learning activities throughout the whole CE period.

Practice Support Program Refresher

As a provincial healthcare regulator, CTCMA strives to ensure that registrants continually improve the quality of services they provide. Improved client outcomes and enhanced public safety are of paramount importance and the College recognizes and initiates related activities.

As the Practice Support Program will be mandatory, we thought it timely to provide a refresher on what it’s all about. Continuing professional development for healthcare professionals is critical. It’s also an obligation of self-regulation in BC, written right into our bylaws.

The basic concept behind the PSP is that, as you grow in your profession and develop your practice, your ability to deliver safe, effective, quality care within your chosen focus of practice will be fine-tuned. The PSP will provide you with tools and support to achieve this by promoting professional behaviour, self-evaluation, peer mentorship, and continued learning across the span of your career.

The goals are to ensure that:

• patients receive safe, professional, consistent care

• the public has confidence in CTCMA registrants

• registrants take responsibility for learning and enhancing their own practices.

The PSP identifies 14 Career-span Competencies (CSCs), professional behaviours really, that apply to all registrants in all practice settings, from the point of entry-to-practice and onwards. It provides assessment tools (which we have been testing these last few months) to help gauge your level of performance relative to these competencies and will help focus your ongoing learning. Here are the 14 Career-span Competencies.

1. Act with professional integrity

2. Communicate effectively

3. Comply with legal requirements

4. Function in a client-centered manner

5. Work within areas of personal knowledge & skills

6. Maintain a safe work environment

7. Maintain comprehensive records

8. Maintain personal wellness consistent with needs of practice

9. Manage time & resources effectively

10. Treat others respectfully

11. Practice in a manner consistent with current developments in the profession

12. Use an evidence-informed approach in your work

13. Interact effectively with other professionals

14. Practice in a self-reflective manner

Participation in the PSP will help you identify your strengths and areas in which you may need further work, and to take responsibility for your own professional growth.

Once the PSP is fully operational as the new Continuing Competency Program, the counting of a fixed number of CEUs completed during a 2-year reporting cycle, with minimum and maximum limits in categories A, B, and C, will be discontinued. The emphasis will shift from counting specific CE hours in specific categories, to ensuring that the learning objectives are suited to individual registrants, allowing them to excel in their practices.

If you would like to take another look at the PSP video and related information, click here.

According to section 1 of the College Bylaws, “professional misconduct of a sexual nature” includes:

a. sexual intercourse or other forms of physical sexual relations between the registrant and the patient,

b. touching, of a sexual nature, of the patient by the registrant, or

c. behavior or remarks of a sexual nature by the registrant towards the patient,

but does not include touching, behaviour and remarks by the registrant towards the patient that are of a clinical nature appropriate to the service being provided.

There are things registrants can do to ensure that you have established and continue to maintain clear professional boundaries with your patients, including:

• Introducing yourself by name and professional title, and providing a description of your role in the patient’s care.

• Explaining all procedures thoroughly and obtaining informed, and/or continued, consent to treatment.

• Respecting the patient’s right to withdraw consent at any time.

• Refraining from entering into a close personal relationship with a former patient.

• Regular review of the CTCMA Practice Standards, Code of Conduct, guidelines“(Where’s the Line”), and the Jurisprudence Handbook and/or at any time a question or potential concern arises.

The Board of Directors provides leadership for carrying out the College’s mission, which is to serve and protect the public interest by regulating and advancing safe, ethical, and quality traditional Chinese medicine practice in British Columbia. The Board is accountable to the public through the Ministry of Health.

These three Board members, elected from among College registrants, will provide great insight and depth to the work of the College over the next three years.

The official results of the election may be viewed here.

The College’s full slate of Directors for the coming year is:

• Peter Stevenson-Moore, Chair

• Jennifer Jianying Gao, Vice-Chair

• Guo Ding

• Chang-Ming Li

• Edwin Liu

• Ms. Holly-Marie Page

• Kimberley Schneberk

• Jocelyn Stanton

• Mr. Joshua Tan

• Jason Tutt

• Ganglin Yin

• Weidong Yu

We would like to thank outgoing Board members Dr. Eyal Lebel, Ms. Rachel Ling and Ms. Beverly Osachoff for their dedicated service. Board members come from all areas of our profession, working as a team to steer College operations and ensure fiscal responsibility. These two outgoing Board members have  contributed a great deal over the course of their terms.

For further information on the CTCMA Board, click here.

Since 1991, iMIS has been providing non-profits, such as ourselves, with software allowing them to focus on the critical work within their mandates rather than on their technology. They offer services that assist with contact management, payment processing, fundraising, dashboard creation and many other areas.

CTCMA’s Compliance Department has been particularly successful with iMIS, moving from using Excel spreadsheets to the much more functional iMIS RiSE website tool. Here’s what CTCMA’s Compliance Administrator, Lee Riekman, had to say about RiSE:

“One of my first tasks at CTCMA was to help our compliance management team step away from Excel spreadsheets and build a RiSE website for a complaints management system. This included learning to use business objects and create IQAs through the iMIS Help Site and the iMIS Learning Subscription which were quite helpful. I really like the modularity of iParts. The iParts are like Legos. You can assemble it all together, creating a page piece by piece. I added alerts, charts to display data and, before I knew it, I had a dashboard that was very useful. I check this dashboard every morning when I start work …”

Lee expands on the benefits that the RiSE website brings to the College in this short video .

We thank Lee for his hard work on this important project!