Continuing Professional Development

RACDS understands that your specialised knowledge needs to stay relevant and up to date.

Through its education programs the College is a key body tracking changing trends and directions in the profession.  Ensuring your skills meet current practice standards and that you are alert to progressive research and clinical technique is part of our specialised service. Participation in our exclusive RACDS programs is suited to university post graduate study and all dental careers including private practice, government health service, academia and the defence forces.

CPD Tracker

Tracking your CPD is important, as in many jurisdictions CPD is a mandatory requirement of registration.  As such, activities must be recorded and retained by the individual. As of 1 July 2019, a simple and intuitive tracker is available for all Fellows and Members to use. Fellows in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMS) will see a customised dashboard and tracker relevant to the speciality.

CPD Offerings

The College offers a range of CPD Masterclasses throughout the year which are available to all RACDS members and non-members. Please click the button below to view what’s on.

CPD for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

The College mandates compliance with continuing professional development (CPD) requirements set by the Medical and Dental Boards of Australia and the Medical and Dental Councils of New Zealand.

All practicing OMS Fellows and specialists are responsible for complying with regulatory requirements that apply individually for medical and dental specialist registration purposes in Australia and New Zealand. The CPD requirements remain the same regardless of whether OMS Fellows and specialists practice part-time or otherwise.

All participants must complete 50 hours of CPD activities each year made up of 12.5 hours of educational activities (Category 1); 25 hours in outcome measurements and performance review (Category 2 and 3) with five hours minimum of each category; and 12.5 hours from any category. The CPD activities must align with the RACDS CPD Framework.

Participants must log completed CPD activities and complete an annual Professional Development Plan in the  RACDS CPD Tracker by 28 February of the following year to receive an Annual Certificate of CPD Compliance. New Zealand practitioners must also engage in peer conversations. Unless selected for audit verification participants are not required to submit additional supporting documentation.

Please refer to the OMS Mandatory Compliance PolicyOMS CPD Standard, and CPD Guide for more information. Participants should also refer to the My OMS CPD Home User Guide.

CPD for General and Specialist Dentists

The RACDS expected commitment to CPD reflects the prestigious expertise associated with Membership and Fellowship of the College.  This equates to having higher expectations from yourself and your peers regarding personal and professional development in your chosen field and communicating this achievement to your patients.

RACDS expects:  

Completion of over 300 hours of CPD over a 5-year period
At least one third (100hrs) of these hours must be spent undertaking ‘verifiable’ CPD (i.e. you must have evidence to prove the CPD was undertaken/completed) and the remainder can be ‘general’ CPD.

Fellows and Members committed to the RACDS’s guideline should expect to undertake a minimum of 60 hours of CPD in a year.
Refer to the Dental Board of Australia’s Guidelines on Continuing Professional Development or the Dental Council of New Zealand website for more information on minimum CPD requirements.

Candidates enrolled in the Membership in General Dental Practice program (MRACDS(GDP)) are required to undertake a minimum of 120 verifiable hours of CPD as part of the program requirements.