How to Get All Your RP Hours from Conversations You’re Already Having

Most doctors don’t struggle to do CPD. They struggle to recognise it.

Reviewing Performance (RP) is a good example. It is often seen as something formal, structured, and slightly artificial—forms to complete, feedback to request, assessments to organise. As a result, it gets deferred or avoided, even though it represents some of the most valuable learning in the CPD framework.

The irony is that many doctors are already doing enough RP to meet their requirements. They just aren’t capturing it.

What RP actually is (and isn’t)

At its core, RP is about understanding how you are performing in practice. Not in theory, not in simulation, but in the real clinical environment. It involves feedback, reflection, and comparison—how you think you performed versus how others experienced it, and what could be improved.

It does not always require a formal assessment form. It does not require a scheduled session with predefined criteria. Those things can help, but they are not the essence of RP.

The essence of RP is conversation.

The RP that happens every day

Consider how often your performance is discussed, even informally.

A consultant gives you feedback after a case presentation. A colleague questions your management plan during a ward round. A nurse raises a concern about a decision. A registrar debriefs a difficult shift. A patient or family reacts to how information was communicated in a way you weren’t expecting.

These are not isolated events. They are constant, embedded in the fabric of clinical work. They contain insight, challenge assumptions, and highlight areas for improvement.

In other words, they are exactly what RP is meant to capture.

The problem is not that these conversations don’t happen. It is that they disappear from our consciousness as quickly as they occur.

Why we don’t recognise them as CPD

Part of the issue is perception. Because these interactions are informal, they don’t feel like “real” CPD. There is no structure, no documentation, and no immediate signal that they should be recorded.

There is also a tendency to undervalue them. A brief comment in passing may not feel significant, even if it reflects a genuine gap or opportunity to improve. Over time, these small moments accumulate, but individually they are easy to ignore.

Finally, there is the issue of timing. By the time you think about logging CPD, the detail of these conversations has often faded. What remains is a vague recollection rather than something that can be meaningfully reflected on.

The shift: from events to capture

The key is not to create more RP, but to capture what is already happening.

This requires a small change in awareness. When a conversation includes feedback, challenge, or reflection on your performance, it is RP. Recognising that in the moment is the first step.

The second is to capture it while it is still fresh. This does not need to be elaborate. A brief note—what happened, what was said, what you took from it—is enough. The aim is not to produce a polished reflection immediately, but to preserve the insight.

Modern tools like Osler make this easier than it has ever been. Voice narration on a smartphone can capture a detailed account in seconds, often with more nuance than written notes. Utilising Osler’s Self Reflection feature is ideal for documenting these events before they escape your memory. These can then be reviewed and formalised later if needed, without relying on recall.

Example

A junior registrar presents a patient on the ward round with a clear but overly detailed summary. The consultant interrupts and suggests a more concise, problem-focused structure, emphasising what matters for decision-making.

The registrar recognises that their presentations often lack prioritisation, makes a brief voice note after the round capturing the feedback, and subsequently practises restructuring future presentations. This can be logged as a self reflection, counting as Reviewing Performance based on direct feedback.

Turning conversations into meaningful RP

Not every interaction needs to be recorded, but many are more valuable than they first appear.

A discussion about a management plan can become RP if it reveals a difference in reasoning. A comment about communication style can become RP if it highlights how your message was received. A question from a junior colleague can become RP if it exposes a gap in your own understanding.

What matters is not the format, but the insight. What did you learn about your performance? What might you do differently next time?

When framed this way, RP becomes less about documentation and more about development.

Making it part of your workflow

The most effective approach is to integrate this into what you already do.

At the end of a shift, take a moment to recall any conversations that stood out. Not the entire day, just one or two interactions that prompted reflection. Capture them briefly. Over a week, this becomes a small but consistent record of performance-related learning.

Over time, patterns begin to emerge. Recurring themes in feedback, repeated areas of uncertainty, strengths that are reinforced. This is where RP becomes particularly powerful—not as isolated entries, but as a longitudinal view of your practice.

Reducing friction with the right tools

Even with the right mindset, systems matter. If capturing RP is cumbersome, it will still be delayed.

Structured platforms such as Osler have been designed to make this process as straightforward as possible. By providing simple ways to log feedback, reflect on performance, and categorise activities appropriately, they reduce the barrier between learning and recording it. The aim is not to formalise every interaction, but to ensure that valuable insights are not lost.

When combined with quick-capture methods such as voice notes or brief written prompts, the process becomes almost seamless.

During an evening shift, a nurse questions a fluid order for an elderly patient with borderline cardiac function, prompting a brief discussion about risk and intent. The doctor realises they had not fully considered the patient’s comorbidities in their initial plan.

After the shift, they jot down a self reflection about the interaction, considering the importance of interdisciplinary input and adjusting their threshold for fluid prescribing in similar patients—captured as RP from real-time feedback.

A different way to think about RP

The common perception is that RP requires effort to organise. In reality, it requires attention to recognise.

You are already having the conversations. You are already receiving feedback. You are already reflecting, at least briefly, on your performance.

The opportunity is to capture those moments before they disappear.

When you do, RP stops being something you need to find time for. It becomes something that naturally accumulates as part of your work.

And in many cases, it is enough to meet your requirements—not by doing more, but by noticing what you are already doing.