FAQs

Well you know, accreditations' a funny thing isn't it, because osteopaths and chiropractors don't have to go to accredited courses, if that means anything at all. You simply have to be satisfied that the CPD that you're doing is meaningful to you in clinic, and you have to justify that when you claim your CPD. So yes, all of our CPD training, all of our broadcasts are all directly relevant to what you do in clinic, and you can claim them as CPD and there is no question about that. We've been doing this for 8 years now, and they've been no problems with either of the general councils.

You know, there are lots of people who are providing online training. Usually you'll find that they train in one particular thing, so they've got a particular area of expertise, and that's what you get from their services. Most often they'll be doing this from an iPhone or an iPad, and it will be just off the cuff, on the fly video. If you come to us, we're doing a huge range of different subjects. We're including the theory, the evidence, we're including the practical, we've got multiple camera angles, this is a really professional setup. So the simple answer is yes, of course you can go to YouTube, and you can watch videos there. But you can't ask questions live so it doesn't count as learning with others, and you're just not getting the variety and the quality that we produce.

Expense is always a concern, isn't it? And sure, we have to charge because we are providing a huge amount of stuff for you, to make sure that you get the best service possible. I'm sure if you look around, you can get your CPD cheaper somewhere else. But is it being delivered to you so that it's easy to access? Is it being sourced for you? So we're finding those topics of interest which are dealing with everyday problems that might come through your door? Now, value is more important than cheapness I think, and what you get from us is huge, huge value and a huge range of CPD. But of course the final decision is up to you.

Asking questions is a really key component of what we do. Because clearly, if you don't have the ability to ask a question, then you can't count this as learning with others. You don't actually have to ask them, you just have to have the capability to do it. And of course, you can listen to the questions put by other people to the speaker. So we've got several ways you can do it. If you're watching through the website, then you can use our website chat line. Your question will go to my team of people working behind the scenes who send it to me, and I will put it to the speaker who generally will be sitting opposite me here for at least part of the broadcast. If you're watching through Facebook, on our closed group, similar sort of thing, you put it in the comments box and again, the quick question gets sent to me. Even better, you have the option through our website of joining us on a live video link and you pop up on this screen behind me and the speaker, and you can then have a direct interaction with the speaker themselves. That's really good because it means you can develop your question that little bit further. So there are plenty of ways for you to ask your question and of course plenty of ways for you to hear other people asking their questions. So it's great learning with others.

Well, I suppose technically they are webinars, yes, because we're delivering a discussion through the web. But in fact, I never call them webinars because the quality and the style of what we're doing is so different from anybody else's. It's what sets it apart. What we're doing is a chat show style with practical demonstrations and live questions from the audience, and from me while we're going through the show. You contrast that, say with the standard sort of briefing, which happens through a YouTube presentation, and you'll get a PowerPoint slide with some droning old voice on the audio behind it. We don't do that. We try to avoid PowerPoints as much as possible. Sure, if there are slides, we'll bring them up here, we'll bring them up full screen for you when it's necessary, and we'll provide handouts where that's possible as well. All of those are sent out automatically. But we try to make this dynamic and engaging and quite good fun to be honest, because you know, we don't treat it lightly, but we certainly like to bring in a certain amount of light-heartedness in our approach. It's much much much more entertaining than just watching a cold YouTube video, especially if that's just PowerPoint.

You know, there's a lot more that you get from the Academy other than just the CPD, which is of course, our main product. But I've got quite a large team of people here working with me, and you get their full support. Our purpose is not just to give you the CPD, but it's to make your life easier. It's to allow you to get on with your job, and not have to worry about all this administrative stuff that you have to do connected with it. So we will log all your CPD and that will be kept in our records. If you want to search your certificates between particular dates, you can do that. We have a service for osteopaths where we will actually produce the whole of the portfolio that you require for your three year cycle. And so you'll have all of your certificates listed, all of the factors that you're required to meet as part of the osteopathic act, all laid out for you ready for your peer discussion review at the end of that three years. More importantly, I suppose if you've got questions, things that are bugging you about practice, not necessarily CPD; If you ring in here or send us an email, we will get on the case for you, and my team will work really hard to find the answers for you and get back to you as soon as they can. So it's it's peace of mind that we're delivering, not just CPD

Everything we do pretty much, is recorded. So all you need to do is to go into our website, look on the recordings page, and you can search by whatever topic interests you, or look for a specific speaker, and you'll find that it's there. Again, together with the certificate that you need for watching recorded CPD, which is of course, a learning by yourself certificate. But it's very, very easy to do, and there's a huge library there for you. We don't allow you to download the videos because clearly we have to keep some control over the product, otherwise they would be shared too widely around the community. But you can watch them as many times as you like, and from any device you want really.

Obviously you need to be confident that you can assure the General Council that you really did attend the CPD that you're claiming. So what we do here is we log the moment that you sign in for one of our broadcasts, and we also log when you leave the broadcast. So although no one's ever asked us this, if they did, we can show them a record that proves that you attended the broadcast. The certificates come to you automatically. Once you've logged out, I will go away and I will personally put some work into putting those certificates together, to show how they relate to the osteopathic practice standards or the chiropractic code. And then as soon as that's done, you'll get notification that your certificates' ready. The only thing you have to do is to put into it your statement of reflection. Now, I draft a statement of reflection for you, and you can accept that statement if you want to, or you can enter your own text, but that part of the certificate is entirely your own. And that again, is to reassure the Councils that you are thinking about your CPD and not just taking some bland printed statement, which is generated automatically. So it's all very well thought through, very robust, and it will satisfy the General Councils.

Joining the broadcast couldn't be easier, you can either go to our website, or you can join through our Facebook closed group. And you'll get a notification of those broadcasts through the APM app, or through email, whichever you prefer. And all you have to do is click the button and you'll be taken straight in and automatically logged into the broadcast. You do have to become a member of the Facebook closed group if you want to do that, but as soon as you're a member that happens almost automatically.

Research and evidence is always an important and quite thorny topic isn't it, within osteopathy and chiropractic in particular, and we're always very sensitive to the fact that allopathic medicine believes that we don't have enough to justify what we do. Well, I'm afraid there's no easy way around that, no matter how you get your CPD, but the great thing is here, I've got the speakers in the studio next to me, either here or over there in the practical area, where we're demonstrating techniques. And at any stage, you can ask your questions about the evidence behind what they're saying. But I will certainly ask that, because I will be looking to see how we can justify using the techniques that he described, or subscribing to the views that they do. And if there isn't any way we'll be open about it, because that's just the nature of medicine generally, and our sort of medicine in particular. So we do everything we can to satisfy ourselves that there is good evidence behind the shows that we're putting on.

There's no easy answer to the business of finding time for our broadcasts We try to vary them as much as possible, which is why we have a broadcast on the first Wednesday and the third Tuesday evenings of the month. A week after each of those, we have a lunchtime broadcast, and we have other lunchtime broadcasts that you can join in, including our case-based discussions. But the bottom line is, we've got to pick some times to put those broadcasts out. I suppose if you turn that question around, you've got to find time for your CPD some time, and that probably means booking time away from home and your family and your friends in your social life, or it means booking time out of clinic to go off on a course. Well, if you simply book out a much shorter period of time to watch our broadcasts, and participate in our shows, then you're achieving the same aim. So, it's not easy and I accept that, but if you are in clinic when the shows are on maybe once in a while, it's just worth booking that evening out. We do over 70 hours of live CPD a year, and you don't need that much, so you can pick and choose between the ones that you decide to book out, and we make it as easy for you as we possibly can.

The shows that we put on cover pretty much every aspect of CPD required by the General Councils. There's a slight exception to that; if you're a chiropractor, you're required to do some form of first aid training every year, how much is entirely up to you. Well, we do produce first aid training, but that's kind of it's a separate course rather than done as one of our routine evening or lunchtime broadcasts, but it is available. If you're an osteopath, we cover everything that's required. We make sure that we cover communications and consent, which is key to all of our professions. We make sure that we cover a whole range of CPD which relates to the osteopathic practice standards, and we also do frequent and regular case-based discussions. And we have a particular format for those which satisfies the General Council. So in short, yes, we cover everything that you need for all of your CPD, over either your one year or your three year cycle, depending on your profession.

What you get from the Academy adds huge value to your practice and to you personally. The thing I am most enthusiastic about, about the way we deliver CPD, is that we deliver such a massive range of topics. We're trying to prepare you for whatever it is that might come through the door. And we can do that because we're doing it in bite sized chunks. In the old system, you'd go away and do a two day course, or a week long course, or something like that in a specific topic. With us, the topics vary, every time we're on air. Add that to the fact that there's four or five hundred people watching, and you're getting their opinions, their experience, their questions, all thrown into the mix, which is bringing a huge amount of clinical value to you. Now, look at the financial value. You're not having to pay to go on courses, you're not having to pay for the travel, the accommodation, you're not having to pay the opportunity cost of time out of clinic, and you're not having to give up time with your family, or in your social life. So does it add value? Yeah, massive value.

Well, you know, it's always down to you to make sure that you get enough CPD hours, you have to set the time aside to do the training. We make it really really easy for you, not least because we provide over 70 hours of CPD per year, and that's 70 hours of learning with others. So if you add that to the back catalogue, you've got hundreds and hundreds of hours to choose from every year. Yes, you've got to set aside the time to do it, but it's relatively straightforward with such a lot to choose from, I think. If you want to find out how much you've done in a given period of time, you can go into our website, you can select the dates you want to check between, and you'll be able to see all of your certificates there laid out, so you'll be able to see very easily how much time you've spent on CPD. And you won't have to root through all your files and drawers and other things, to find all those bits of paper from physical courses that you've gone to. Unless of course you feel like downloading your certificates which you're perfectly welcome to do that. We make it very easy for you to check on your hours done.

Logging your CPD is pretty easy, we provide you with a certificate which clearly shows you the time spent on each elements of CPD. I personally make sure that it's clear which of the osteopathic practice standards, or which of the chiropractic code elements, are relevant to that CPD, and I also draft a statement of reflection which you can use when you upload your CPD. If you're an osteopath, we have a service for you where we will do all that logging for you, so we will list how many hours you've spent on communications and consent, how many hours you've spent on objective activities, and each of the osteopathic practice standards. And that's all you need to think about.