Congratulations, you’ve finally graduated from med school! 
You’ve passed all your examinations and that should be it, right?
Well, not quite…
Now the studying continues 
The only difference is that you get to set the pace of continuing your education (beyond meeting the minimum CPD requirements, of course).
Many doctors, aware of the competitive field we work in, have asked us this question: what courses/exams should I do during internship and commserve?
Well, that depends on your goal: the “why”. Determining WHY you need to do a course/examination will help you to determine WHAT you should do.
Why do we keep studying?
- Our patients need it. As you know, medicine is such a wide field that you could spend your whole life studying and still only scratch the surface of it. We always aim to put patients’ health first by continuing to grow our clinical expertise.
- Our CVs need it. Most jobs would require you to have completed at least a few specific courses, some might even require certain credentials.
- The HPCSA requires it. If we wish to practice medicine in South Africa then we need to meet their minimum CPD requirements to keep our registration.
We will try to dig a little deeper into each of these through a series of topics, and we welcome your constructive feedback or comments.
Some of the different courses and examinations we will also look at are:
- Short courses (e.g. AHA life support courses).
- Ultrasound courses.
- Diplomas.
- FC examinations (in particular part I examinations).
- Clinical courses.
- Non-clinical courses.
Feel free to ask or answer questions by creating new Topics or replying to existing Topics.