I really like the revalidation submission table with short reflective notes – helpfully, that’s how I record my continuing professional development – but for me it’s helpful to have a longer reflection on my professional activities in a blog form, to take stock.
I usually try to revalidate in the Spring each year, so I’m about six months later than normal. That probably reflects how busy I’ve been. I do think my CPD has taken a hit because of that. The activities that I have done, have generally been conferences – it’s somehow easier to set aside 3 days when I know months ahead, than 30 minutes here or there – and systematic review-related, which has become a core part of my job as a university medical librarian.
The bulk of my revalidation submission was the excellent Systematic Review Conversations held by Lancaster University Library, with speakers from multiple organisations on topics including developing a systematic review service, decolonisation and grey literature, and common student mistakes in systematic reviews.
The other large chunk in my submission is the EAHIL conference, which took place in Trondheim in June. I presented on my work designing and co-leading a postgraduate course, which was a chance to reflect and disseminate some lessons learned. As an attendee, the conference is an active community of health librarians, so was valuable for networking and for learning.
A pretty cool addition this year was my role as a volunteer tutor for student-selected summer projects. I read, assessed and provided feedback on project proposals and reflective reports. This was an experience of providing feedback and grades, building on work I’ve been doing in my Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, where I’ve been learning about, and reflecting on, learning and teaching in higher education.
Something that didn’t make it onto my submission, but not for any reason except I’d already met the required 20 hours with the above, is UHMLG. Again, this is a highly-relevant professional group for health and medical librarians working in universities. I’m on the committee, and act as Delegate Liaison for our events. This year we ran an online conference in the Spring, on the theme Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, and an in-person conference in Summer, on New Horizons: Preparing for the Future. My organisation skills are always put to the test in working with Eventbrite, sending required information, and keeping track of registrations. The events ran really well and I’m fortunate to work with a great committee.
Look at what I’ve been up to, it’s clear systematic reviews are dominating my professional development activities. In addition to being the Systematic Reviews Lead in my team, I also line manage two Systematic Review Tutors (experienced students we have hired to advise on literature search methods) and of course advise on systematic reviews conducted here are the University of Edinburgh. I’m a bit saturated with it, but foolishly I’m probably going to conduct my own systematic review next calendar year. I’ve conducted systematic review searches before, but typically coming in to an existing team, usually with the beginnings of a search strategy to build on. This time it’ll be all down to me (plus another reviewer, of course!). I’ll try not to chicken out before we get the protocol written 🙂
Kangarooth 