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What is the Professional Development Certificate? |
 The BPSA Professional Development Certificate (PDC) scheme is an important service that BPSA offer to help you prepare for Continuous Professional Development (CPD) which will become compulsory once you qualify as a registered pharmacist. The scheme aims to prepare you for your future career, helping you to develop vital skills, some of which you may not cover in your undergraduate studies, skills which employers look out for!
The scheme allows pharmacy students to collect evidence of their participation in educational events and activities, which are not part of the MPharm degree. It aims to develop the necessary reflective skills for CPD and encourages students to take an active role in their future profession.
 The events and activities vary from conferences and competitions organised by the BPSA to clinical multiple choice papers published in the Future Pharmacist publications. The College of Pharmacy Practice accredits all the events and activities including material, which will help your professional development at an early stage in your career. If you collect enough evidence throughout the academic year you will be eligible to receive the Professional Development Certificate. The PDC will act as an indicator to potential employers of your commitment to life long learning and high standards of practice. Click here to download the PDC Scheme FactFile Click here to read the PDC Promotion and Information Leaflet [pdf] |
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Professional Development Points |
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Click the file names below to download the Professional Development Point form you need. |
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How to build your portfolio of evidence and receive the Professional Development Certificate... |
- Step One: Get involved with local and national BPSA activities. For each Professional Development Certificate (PDC) accredited event or activity you take part in you will receive ONE Professional Development Point (PDP). Fill in the questions on the PDP and that's 1 valid point. (Attendance for the whole week at Annual conference equals 2 points)
- Step Two: Compile your PDC portfolio.
- Step Three: Ensure you have collected FIVE points during ONE ACADEMIC YEAR. Once you have collected all 5 points you need to complete the reflection form (which can be downloaded from the members only section) to complete the CPD cycle. You can then post your portfolio folder, containing your certificates of participation, to the Educational Development Officer.
Professional Development Certificates will then be issued by post to those with satisfactory evidence. For the year 2008-09 please send your completed forms to: BPSA PDC Scheme, Membership Division, RPSGB, 1 Lambeth High Street, London. SE1 7JN.
By the 11th July 2010 AT THE LATEST.
Please do not send any of the completed portfolios by registered post. Those people who do not fulfill the requirements for a certificate will have their portfolio sent back to them with advice on how to improve it, after which they may them resubmit their portfolio. Any questions please email the Educational Development Officer. |
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Where can I get points from? |
- Attending BPSA Area Conferences
- Attending BPSA Annual Conference
- Attending BPSA day at BPSA Annual Conference
- Attending a local RPSGB branch meeting*
- Taking part in the McNeil Responding to Symptoms Competition
- Completing the credit for learning articles in the Future Pharmacist
- Taking part in the Reckitt Benckiser Student of the Year Competition*
- Taking part in the UniChem Pharmacy Student Award competition
- PDP can be downloaded from this site (coming soon)
A maximum of 2 points can be gained from any one area. |
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How are events accredited? |
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If you are running an event at your university you may accredit it to be a part of the Professional Development Certificate (PDC) Scheme. All PDC events are accredited by the College of Pharmacy Practice; they are assessed to see what competencies they address (similar to the performance standards met during the preregistration year). Any event can be accredited if they address some of these competences. If you wish to run/or are attending an event (including international ones) which currently aren’t accredited please email the Educational Development Officer to see about it being accredited. "Best of Luck with the PDC scheme and your university studies for the coming year!" |
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A Guide to Filling in your Professional Development Points |
The whole aim of the Professional Development Scheme is to show that you can reflect upon what you have learnt and improve yourself as an individual. As a qualified pharmacist you will have to do CPD, which involves a learning cycle of planning, taking action, evaluating and reflecting. This is a continuous cyclic process where once you have reflected and identified your learning needs, you then plan the next task to fulfill these needs. In our Professional Development Points (PDPs) we ask you various questions, which guide you through this cycle and help you to get to grips with the concept.
Here are a few examples and tips to help you to fill in the questions:
1. What was your main motivation for attending the conference?
This can be anything from wanting to know more about the topic of the conference to being able to meet new people from different universities. Or it could be that you wanted to improve your CV by gaining extra pharmacy knowledge. Try to give a good few sentences on why you are taking part in BPSA events.
2. Have you identified any strengths or weaknesses?
Try to think of the different skills you have/haven't got. Did taking part in a workshop show that you have good communication skills etc? You can also put here any knowledge gaps you have about the topic covered that day.
3. How are you going to address these weaknesses?
If you had no weaknesses then say so but most people can usually find something they can improve upon in a situation. This can range form researching more about a subject to deciding to take part in more BPSA events to improve your confidence. But try to think of something that you would actually do and be truthful. Everyone learns in a different way so describe your personal learning style.
4. The last few questions on a PDP are usually directly related to the event you took part in. They may require you to go away and research a bit into the topic covered. This is a way to further your learning and ensure you have grasped the subject well. The rest focus on life as a future pharmacist and ask for your personal opinions on various topics. In the BPSA we like to keep people up to date on all things happening in pharmacy, as it is a fast changing world. These questions are there to help you to create your own view. If you don't feel you have an opinion then publications like the Pharmaceutical Journal have many articles on various topics. Have a read up on the PDP question and then decide how you want to answer the question. Later on in life the RPSGB will be asking you various questions during consultations, asking for your opinion on how you want Pharmacists to work. This is a perfect chance to learn how to put you opinions in writing. Feel free here to use extra paper to complete your answers as fully as possible.
Once you have filled in five PDP's then keep hold of them till the end of the year when a final reflection form will become available to download. The reflection form is there to complete the learning cycle and bring together everything you have learnt over the year. The deadline for sending off your completed portfolio is 11th July 2010. |
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PDC Scheme