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School of Medicine School of Medicine
  1. School of Medicine
  2. Education
  3. Continuing Professional Development
  4. For Educators & Planners

For Educators & Planners

What You Need to Know

The mission of UC San Diego Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is to provide needs-based education for physicians and health care providers to improve knowledge, competence and/or performance and enable the optimum provision of health care.

Before you start the accreditation application process, read through Policies & Procedures. Note that a UC San Diego School of Medicine faculty member must be a major decision-maker in the planning of your activity and take responsibility for validating the content and ensuring compliance with all accreditation requirements.

Complete the Activity Questionaire, if you need assistance deciphering which activity type is appropriate for your activity, or if you are planning an activity that does not fit these general types/formats (Live, RSS, Enduring). We encourage the utilization of multiple formats specific to educational needs and individualized learning styles, and we will be happy to work with you to develop self-directed learning opportunities and performance improvement activities.

Main Activity Types

Review below for a brief description of the main activity types and the steps involved in planning and executing a CME activity.

Live Activity

A live activity is an activity that occurs at a specific time. Participation may be in person or remotely as is the case of teleconferences or live internet webinars. These may be offered through a variety of delivery mechanisms — examples include, but are not limited to, national, regional or local conferences, workshops, seminars, simulation workshops, structured learning activities presented during a committee meeting and live Internet webinars.

Regularly Scheduled Series (RSS)

A Regularly Scheduled Series (RSS) is a live activity that is planned to have:

1) a series with multiple sessions, 
2) that occur on an ongoing basis (offered weekly, monthly, or quarterly), and
3) are primarily planned by and presented to the UC San Diego's professional staff.

Examples of activities that are planned and presented as a regularly scheduled series are Grand Rounds, Case Conferences, Tumor Boards and M&M Conferences.

Enduring Material

An enduring material (or home study activity) is an activity that endures over a specified time. These activities include print, audio, video, and Internet materials, such as monographs, podcasts, CD-ROMs, DVDs, archived webinars, as well as other web-based activities.