Physician Assistants in Canada write the PA Certification Exam once, and in order to maintain their “Certified” status, they must obtain a certain number of CPD hours. CPD stands for “Continuing Professional Development”, which is also known as CME or “Continuing Medical Education”.
Be sure to visit the CAPA Physician Assistant Certification Council of Canada (PACCC) website for specific requirements.
Step 1: Login
When you visit http://capa-acam.ca, in the top right hand corner you’ll see “CPD Tracking Tool”. Click it.
This will take you to a login screen, enter your Royal College iD. If you do not have this, please contact CAPA admin@capa-acam.ca.
Step 2: Select the type of CPD Activity
After logging in, you will be taken to a Dashboard Login. Select the button that says “Enter a CPD Activity”. 
Categorize your CME activity
You will have a window pop up. At this point you must categorize your CME activity as either (1) Group Learning, (2) Self-Learning or (3) Assessment. I’ve listed all the subcategories accordingly.
Step 3: Enter CPD Activity Details
In this step we enter all relevant details, including title of the activity, accreditation, hours spent participating in the activity
Also feel free to add any relevant certificates (whether a scanned PDF or screenshot of the hours you completed) to include as part of the documentation.
Step 4: Add Final Details and Submit
Next you are going to select the way the Learning activity occurred, and select the relevant CanMeds Role.
Once you are done – Submit and you should get a verification.
Remember to Maintain your Certification!
We participate in Continuing Professional Development activities all the time. If I’m preparing teaching materials, reading around cases, participating in journal club that all counts. You just have to remember to log your CPD activities and do the minimum amount for each section requirements.
Have any questions? Let us know in the comments below!
