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Continuing Professional Development

Continuing Professional Development

CPD refers to the engagement in activities which maintain and enhance professional knowledge, skills, and judgment throughout a veterinarian’s career.

 Activities that contribute to CPD include reading journals or College publications, independent research, delivering presentations, teaching courses, writing for publication, consulting with peers, rounds, mentoring, and working with professional associations or regulatory organizations. 

CPD includes activities you pursue to maintain your professional competence, keep up with innovations and advancements, or develop expertise in a new area or scope of practice. CPD activities do not include routine work-related responsibilities.  CPD activities lead to professional reflection and identifying the impact new information may have on your practice.  

An essential component of effective CPD is reflection on the value of the activity as it relates to your professional development and your practice. 

Questions to consider include: 

“What is my professional development goal related to this activity?”

“What was the takeaway message?”

“How will I change my practice?”


Veterinarians are required to report the number of CPD hours they complete each year. This information is collected during the annual licence renewal process. The College recommends licensed members complete at least 50 hours of CPD each year, or 150 hours over a three-year period. 

CPD Activity Log

Organized Learning Activities

  • A1 In-person CPD event: courses, conferences, presentations, wet-labs, seminars, and workshops
  • A2 Training and studying for supplementary credentials 
  • A3 Virtual CPD event: webinars, online learning modules, online courses, virtual conferences/presentations
  • A4 Presentations given and published material written
  • A5 Other organized learning

Self-directed Learning Activities

  • B1 Consulting with peers, participating in rounds, and mentoring
  • B2 Reading professional publications and reviewing other media
  • B3 Independent research
  • B4 Contributions to professional organizations
  • B5 Other self-directed learning
The CPD Activity Log is available to veterinarians in the Professional Practice Portal.  Using the CPD Activity Log, veterinarians can log completed activities, assign activity codes, and indicate learning outcomes.  The log summarizes the hours logged for each activity type, and this information transfers automatically to the online annual licence renewal form.

CPD Activity Log