New Year, Same CPD? Or This Year, Done Better.

Every January brings a familiar ritual in medicine. New rosters. New terms. New diaries. And, sitting quietly in the background, CPD — waiting to either become a smooth, almost invisible part of your professional life… or a low-grade source of stress that flares up every few months.

Most doctors don’t fail CPD because they don’t care. They fail it because it drifts. It gets left until later. Evidence goes missing. Reflections feel rushed. And suddenly December arrives with the unmistakable sense that this could have been easier.

The good news is that CPD doesn’t need a dramatic overhaul to work better. Small, deliberate habits — set early and revisited often — make an enormous difference. If you’re making New Year’s resolutions anyway, here are a few that genuinely improve the chances of your CPD going well this year.

Start with a Plan — Before the Year Gets Away From You

The most powerful CPD move you can make happens before you log a single hour.

Making a plan early gives your CPD direction. Not perfection — direction. It forces you to ask where your practice feels strong, where it feels shaky, and where you’d like to be by the end of the year. That might relate to a clinical skill, a recurring on-call challenge, communication issues, or even confidence in a particular area of decision-making.

Doctors sometimes resist planning because it feels bureaucratic or premature. But CPD plans aren’t predictions — they’re hypotheses. They’re allowed to change. In fact, they should change. What matters is that you start the year with intention rather than reconstruction.

And once that plan exists, don’t treat it as a “set and forget” document. The best CPD plans are reviewed regularly, even briefly. A quick check-in every few months is often enough to recalibrate and stop drift before it starts.

You are entitled to claim up to 3 hours for developing your plan - this reflects how important it is, and how much detail and effort you should put into it.

Log CPD When It Happens — Not When You Remember It

Almost every CPD headache can be traced back to one habit: leaving it too late.

When CPD is entered weeks or months after the fact, details blur. Evidence is lost. Learning outcomes become vague. Reflections feel artificial. What could have been a simple, accurate entry turns into a reconstruction exercise.

Entering CPD as soon as you do it — or as close to real time as possible — changes the experience entirely. The learning is still fresh. The context is clear. Uploading evidence takes seconds rather than hours of searching through emails and folders.

Capturing evidence in real time also protects you later. If you’re audited, or simply trying to understand how your practice has changed over the year, those contemporaneous records are invaluable.

Think of it less as admin and more as clinical documentation. You wouldn’t rely on memory alone for patient notes weeks later — CPD deserves the same respect.

Take Learning Outcomes Seriously (They Matter More Than You Think)

Learning outcomes are often treated as the most irrelevant part of CPD. They’re rushed. Kept vague. Or written in a way that satisfies the form but doesn’t reflect real learning.

Done well, they’re actually one of the most useful parts of the process.

Detailed learning outcomes force you to articulate what changed — not what you attended. They clarify whether something altered your knowledge, your skills, your behaviour, or your confidence. They also make patterns visible across the year, helping you see what genuinely moves the needle in your practice. And they are potentially very useful in the future (you can search your Osler portfolio for these learnings down the track).

When learning outcomes are thoughtful, CPD stops feeling like box-ticking and starts looking like a professional development record you might actually want to read back later.

Use the Tools — They’re There to Do the Heavy Lifting

One of the most common CPD mistakes doctors make is underusing the tools designed to make it easier.

Osler’s built-in features aren’t just there to store hours. They’re there to support the thinking that CPD is meant to encourage. Logbooks make procedural learning visible over time. Feedback tools help turn informal comments into documented improvement. Self-reflections allow you to capture insights that would otherwise evaporate after a busy shift. Scratchnotes give you a low-friction place to park learning before it becomes “official” CPD, reflecting the “real-world” learning we all do every day.

Using these tools doesn’t make your CPD more complicated — it makes it more efficient and more defensible. They reduce cognitive load, prevent duplication, and help you meet targets without last-minute stress.

The resolution here is simple: don’t do CPD the hard way if you don’t have to.

Don’t Do CPD Alone

CPD is often framed as a solo obligation, but it works best when it’s social.

Teaming up with colleagues makes learning richer and more sustainable. Shared audits, peer discussions, feedback exchanges, and informal case debriefs all count — and they’re often more meaningful than isolated activities. They also provide accountability, which quietly improves follow-through.

Sharing ideas with colleagues exposes blind spots and normalises uncertainty. It reminds you that professional growth isn’t a private struggle — it’s a collective process.

This is something Osler is actively leaning into. With the upcoming Community Forum feature planned for release in 2026, doctors will be able to collaborate, discuss cases, share learning ideas, and support each other in a secure, profession-only space. CPD doesn’t have to live in a vacuum, and the future of it shouldn’t either.

A Resolution That Actually Sticks

Most New Year’s resolutions fail because they ask for too much change, too fast.

CPD resolutions are different. They’re about doing a few things slightly earlier, slightly more deliberately, and slightly more honestly. Make a plan. Revisit it. Log learning while it’s fresh. Write outcomes that reflect reality. Use the tools available to you. Learn with others.

None of this requires perfection. It just requires momentum.

And if there’s one thing CPD responds well to, it’s starting early.