CPD reviews

Re: CPD reviews

Jill Maddison — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:59:51 GMT

Hi Hannah - a great question and it really is improtant that you get the best value for your CPD spend. As a CPD provider I can assure you there is a lot of competition out there and the reason why practical courses such as ultrasound are so expensive is because they are so expensive to run.

Don't forget to check out the courses at RVC as well as we have online as well as onsite ultrasound courses that may suit you. See www.rvc.ac.uk/cpd and http://www.rvc.ac.uk/CPD/Courses/Course.cfm?course=203 .

2011 courses will be on the website from September and will include an entirely online abdominal ultrasound course in March 2011 (with an optional onsite scanning day inj April) and our usual and very popular Basic Echocardiograhy course - not quite sure when this will be running yet.

Best wishes,

Jill Maddison Director of CPD, Royal Veterinary College.

Re: CPD reviews

Vikki Halliday LLB — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:33:52 GMT

I did the online RVC radiography course last year, and Pete Mantis was extremely helpful and approachable.

Would recommend their online courses to everyone.

Re: CPD reviews

Jillian Hall — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:40:13 GMT

I went on a 2day Improve course, "Introduction to ultrasound" as a relatively recent graduate which I found very useful/ PeteMantis was the main speaker although there were also techinicians frome an ultrasound machine company for advice during practical sessions.

Im on the look out for a 2 day Intermediate level course now as I seem to get given all the horrible ultrasounds to do and want to be more confident finding adrenals and pancreases(sp?). I'd quite like one that has a little content on thoracic ultrasonography as Im starting to dabble in that, but I might have to try the abdominal course recommended above.

Re: CPD reviews

Laurence Webb — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:28:30 GMT

I also did a 2 day CPD Solutions abdominal ultrasonography course (intermediate level) last year and thought it was one of the best courses I'd been on. There were about 16 delegates with 2 tutors so you were never left without supervision or advice.

There was a selection of ultrasound machines which you could move between although I generally stuck with a model that was similar to our practices own one and it worked out at 1 machine per 2 or 3 delegates. There was also a good supply of dogs to ultrasound of varying sizes and conformations which was great.

I've been to Improve courses before and, although they are good, I generally found the number of delegates to be higher than on the CPD Solutions one. Having said that I was very tempted by the Improve 4 day course that was mentioned above.

Re: CPD reviews

Gillian Mostyn — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:44:03 GMT

Did the 2 day introduction to abdominal untrasound course with CPD solutions at the end of last year. Excellent mix of tuition and practical time - would happily recommend it!

Re: CPD reviews

Kate Richardson — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:29:44 GMT

I did the Improve Introduction to Ultrasound course a couple of years ago, it was a 4 day course, 1 day per month, 2 days on abdominal us and 2 days on thoracic. The tutors were Nic Hayward for abdo and Pete Mantis for thoracic, altho he couldn't make the second thoracic day and someone else replaced him but I can't remember who.

It was a good course, approx half the time was spent on theory and half on practical. There were approx 3-4 people to each us machine (can't remember exactly how many people were on the course but it was no more than 15 or 16) and the tutor was available to help.

We chose this course for several reasons- it was close to our practice, and BCF were sponsoring the course and offering a good deal on purchase of a machine to people enrolled on the course and we were looking to buy a machine, so it was really helpful to get to know a machine on the course and which buttons to twiddle! We also had the use of a machine for the 4 months to take home and practice using between the formal CPD days.

The course itself was very good, Nic H is an excellent tutor, Pete M was also good, but tended to get a bit too advanced for me on echo- hard enough to get the standard heart views without then worrying about Doppler and measuring speed of blood flow- for a beginners course, I felt that 3 days on abdo and 1 on thoracic would have been a better balance.

Essentially the course equipped me with the basics to go and start scanning, but I would say it probably took me year before I felt reasonably confident with what I was seeing and how to interpret changes. I am lucky that Nic comes to our practice every 2-3 weeks to scan, so I get constant CPD and especially early on, I would scan an animal and then Nic would come and scan it and I could then see if what I had seen/said was correct! but I appreciate that not everyone has that facility.

I think the tutor is probably the most important factor when choosing a course- find out as much as you can about them and speak to people who have been on a course given by them. Also how many people are on the course as you want access to the tutor when there so when doing practicals you get as much from it as poss. And don't be afraid to be a bit pushy if you want some practical help during the sessions!

But practice, practice, practice- ask all your speys if you can practice for 10mins before going to surgery whilst they are under ga, get to look at as many 'normals' as poss. The hardest thing I found at first was that everyone in the practice thought I was instantly an expert after going on the course! But 2 years on has definitely been worthwhile, I love scanning!

Re: CPD reviews

Arlo Guthrie — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:43:40 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Gritti"]Is there a website/forum to compare different CPD providers and courses?[/quote]

Yes, this website! Hopefully some members will be along soon to give you their opinions.

[quote user="Hannah Gritti"] We could do with a facility to create a bit of competition between the companies, esp since they charge so much, to provide the best quality cpd and get the best reviews.[/quote]

We have a directory of the CPD providers here, which provides the opportunity for members to give their feedback about the service provider / course.

I just started asking people to comment under the tax advisors we have listed in the directory last week - here's an example ... which I think shows how useful this kind of feedback can be...

So anyone who replies to this thread, could I ask you to comment on the page of any CPD provider in our directory. If your comment is positive, say whatever you like. If your experience of the provider was negative, just make sure that you state the facts! Provided you do that, don't be frightened of posting a negative comment.