Making Time for Learning: How Health Professionals Prioritize CPD Amidst Competing Demands
Adam Gavarkovs, PhD
Research Associate, Division of Continuing Professional Development,
Faculty of Medicine,
University of British Columbia
Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Time: 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Hybrid: IRC Room 414 & Zoom*
Zoom Details: For connection details, please email ches.communications@ubc.ca.
Abstract
With only 24 hours in the day, health professionals must find a way to balance their work responsibilities (e.g., I need to see all my scheduled patients), learning needs (e.g., I should improve my skills in motivational interviewing), and personal commitments (e.g., I need to take my daughter to her hockey game), with continuing professional development (CPD) often falling to the wayside. Yet there are many cases when health professionals make time for CPD they deem important, and they routinely find a way to meet CPD requirements for continued licensure. This suggests that time is not a fixed barrier for CPD, but rather a finite resource (along with their energy and money) that health professionals choose to allocate to their learning needs under certain circumstances. In this presentation, I will describe an emerging model of how health professionals dynamically prioritize CPD in the face of competing demands and limited resources. This model suggests that our efforts to encourage lifelong learning may sometimes have unanticipated consequences on health professionals’ competence and well-being, and points to ways of reimagining our current CPD system.
Biography
Adam is a research associate in the Division of Continuing Professional Development, where he leads a CPD program of research to understand and enhance the provision of high-quality CPD in Canada. Adam received his PhD in Health Policy, Management and Evaluation with a concentration in Health Professions Education from the University of Toronto in 2023. Prior to earning his PhD, Adam received a master’s degree in Population Health Sciences from Harvard University, and he maintains status as an Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University.
The Division of Continuing Professional Development, University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine (UBC CPD) is fully accredited by the Continuing Medical Education Accreditation Committee (CACME) to provide CPD credits for physicians. This activity meets the certification criteria of the College of Family Physicians of Canada and has been certified by UBC CPD for up to 15.0 Mainpro+® Certified Activity credits. Each physician should claim only those credits accrued through participation in the activity. CFPC Session ID: 301903-001 to 301903-010. RCPSC ACCREDITATION: The CHES Cutting Edge Speaker Series is a self-approved group learning activity (Section 1) as defined by the Maintenance of Certification Program of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.