Veterinary CPD - how Veterinary Prescriber helps you to keep up to date
Veterinary CPD - how Veterinary Prescriber helps you to keep up to date
Veterinary CPD on medicines
Treatments change a lot over a working life. So keeping up to date with new treatments and changes to existing treatments is a professional necessity.
In practice, keeping up to date on medicines is a broad subject. It includes:
being aware of the range of veterinary licensed medicines on the market and when new veterinary medicines become available
knowing about changes to product information
keeping up with veterinary medicines regulations
keeping up to date with the evidence on veterinary medicines.
keeping abreast of policy recommendations from professional organisations (e.g. on antibiotics and parasiticides)
Veterinary CPD – new medicines
Every month, several new veterinary medicines are authorised for use in the UK. Some of these will be completely new medicines. As a prescriber, you will need to decide whether they have a place in your personal formulary, so you will need to know all the pros and cons. To help with this, Veterinary Prescriber publishes independent reviews of new veterinary medicines. The reviews are published in the form of CPD modules that include MCQs to test your knowledge and reflective exercises to help with outcomes-focused veterinary CPD. The modules include a note-taking area for storage of notes or reflections. These are saved in 'My account' link together with CPD certificates, so they are easy to retrieve when compiling and submitting veterinary CPD records.
It is also important to know if a new product replaces a human authorised or special formulation that you have been used to prescribing, because a veterinary authorised product must always be considered first for the treatment of an individual animal in accordance with the prescribing cascade. Veterinary Prescriber’s monthly Medicines News ensures that you know the practical relevance of new formulations.
Many newly licensed medicines will be generics (copies) of existing brands. These may offer advantages over what you already use. For instance, the new product may have a longer in-use shelf-life, include a flavouring and so be more palatable, come in a different range of tablet strengths or have a lower cost. Veterinary Prescriber’s practical insights help you to know how new products compare with existing brands.
Veterinary CPD - changes to licensed product information
Every licensed veterinary medicine has a summary of product characteristics (SPC). This sets out what has been agreed about the product as a result of the regulatory authority's assessment and explains how to use and prescribe the product. The company (the marketing authorisation holder) is required to review the safety profile of a medicine at regular intervals and alter the SPC in the light of new information. Such information may change the risk: benefit judgement when prescribing for an individual patient. The marketing authorisation holder also revises other sections of the SPC as needed, for example if authorisation has been gained for a new indication, or new data dictate a new withdrawal period or a different shelf life.
Veterinary Prescriber’s monthly Medicines News includes a round-up of these changes that are crucial for prescribers to know about. The Medicines News is published on the 15th of every month and subscribers are alerted by email.
Veterinary CPD - unlicensed medicines and uses
The limited range of medicines licensed for use in animals means that vets commonly need to use medicines that are licensed for use in different species or occasionally use unlicensed medicines, in accordance with the prescribing cascade. Keeping up to date on these can be more challenging than is keeping up to date on licensed medicines. Veterinary Prescriber helps with this aspect of veterinary CPD too. The CPD library includes many modules on such uses of medicines.
Veterinary CPD – veterinary medicines regulations
It goes without saying that you need to keep up to date on medicines regulations to ensure your medicines use is legal and safe. It is particularly important now, when the first major revisions to the UK veterinary medicines regulations in a decade are expected. An outstanding feature of Veterinary Prescriber (in addition to the independent evaluations of medicines) is how it helps make sense of medicines regulations and their relevance to practice. By subscribing to Veterinary Prescriber you can gain access to our online CPD support, and can be confident that you’re keeping up to date with regulations as they change. .
Veterinary medicines learning in one place
There are many different types and sources of information on medicines which can be used for vet CPD:
regulatory information (SPCs and datasheets)
formularies
promotional information
research papers
knowledge summaries
what’s on the market
unlicensed and human medicines
This can mean it is challenging to keep on top of developments. Veterinary Prescriber is dedicated to veterinary medicines, making it easy to keep up to date on all aspects of veterinary medicines. And as it is independent of the pharmaceutical industry you can rest assured your learning is not influenced by vested interests. By subscribing to Veterinary Prescriber you can rest assured that you are keeping on top of veterinary medicines developments.