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For Members: CPD for ANZBCPS Board Certification

ANZBCPS Criteria for Educational Activity Approval

ESSENTIAL criteria for educational activities

  1. The objectives and program outline are clearly stated.
  2. The content contains educational sessions specific to cosmetic surgery and/or nonsurgical cosmetic procedures.
  3. The content demonstrates high clinical and ethical standards and is free from commercial bias or inducements
  4. Details of any commercial interest or sponsorship must be openly declared, and if the activity contains reference to commercial products and/or services, objective information based on generally accepted scientific methods is presented.
  5. Education event Provider/Owner/Host must be exclusively specialist plastic surgeons in their country of practice or an organisation of plastic surgeons.
  6. A certificate or evidence of participation is available to attendees.

DESIRABLE criteria for educational activities

  1. A full, detailed program of topics, activities and presenters is available for review at the time of educational activity submission to allow determination of CPD hours.
  2. The program is focussed on real-world learning that reflects identified practice needs as defined by the ANZBCPS Sub-Board.
  3. The program includes active and/or interactive elements such as small group work, case discussions, problem-solving or hands-on work as defined by the Board.
  4. Learning assessment and/or feedback to participants is provided.
  5. Participants contribute to formal course evaluation.
  6. The educational program consists of content dedicated to ethical practice and
    professional standards.

Approval of educational activities (and the number of allocated CPD hours) for annual Board Certification is at the discretion of ANZBCPS Sub-Board. Approval does not confer an ‘accreditation’ to event host/provider. Approval is awarded to individual events only.

FAQ on CPD Requirements

If the activity you submit is an activity provided by ASAPS, you do not need to provide any evidence. We all be able to check your submission with our attendance record.

If the activity you submit is an activity provided by another provider, you will need to upload evidence, this can be a certificate of attendance or an email from the organiser/institution confirming your attendance. Please note that the evidence must include:

  1. Name of activity
  2. Date of activity (or range of dates e.g. 3 monthly audit from 1/1/2025-31/12/2025)
  3. Number of hours of activity
  4. Whether it has cosmetic surgery content

This is applicable across all categories.

Some CPD programs (such as RACS) are based on an honesty system where evidence of attendance is optional. However, these programs maintain their legitimacy by performing random audits on their members on a regular basis. Unfortunately, ANZBCPS does not have the resources to facilitate regular audits. To uphold the validity of our certification process, it is logistically more efficient for the evidence of attendance/completion to be uploaded contemporaneously with each year’s certification.

By having this policy, if AHPRA ever questions you about your cosmetic-specific CPD as part of your compliance with cosmetic surgery regulations, the board-certification would be adequate as proof that you have completed the CPD requirement to meet regulatory criteria.

The ANZBCPS pre-approved list of CPD activities is updated on our website every February in preparation for your CPD planning for the year. This is announced annually with your welcome/introductory letter.

This pre-approved list of CPD activities is particularly important for the Category of Educational Activities. They are recommended CPD activities dedicated to cosmetic surgery education and have been reviewed by the ANZBCPS sub-board for both content, quality and relevance. These activities are tailored to the specialist plastic surgeons who are active in cosmetic surgery practice.

By providing this list, we are able to give all our members a resource to fulfil their CPD requirement for both AHPRA cosmetic surgery regulation as well as ANZBCPS board certification. Early release of this list also allows our members to plan their CPD requirements ahead. In addition, it takes significant office resources for us to assess and verify every submission of non-pre-approved CPD activity.

Please note that for a conference/meeting to be approved, it requires the conference organiser to submit an accreditation form (available from Suzane) prior to the conference for it to be assessed by the sub-board and included in the list of approved activities.

As mentioned in your introductory letter in February, we strongly recommend that you use the resources available on our pre-approved list on the member’s page on our website.

If you submit a CPD activity that is not on this list, it will be assessed before it will be approved to count towards your certification. Some activities may be rejected if it fails to fulfils ANZBCPS’ stringent criteria. Although the ANZBCPS CPD guideline considers many aspects of an activity, the activities must at least meet the following criteria:

  1. The activity must be organised/run by plastic surgeons or a committee/group made up by a majority of plastic surgeons.
  2. The activity must have a cosmetic surgery component with specific allocated hours that can be demonstrated in a formal program or agenda.
  3. Attendance at the activity must be confirmed by an attendance certificate or letter/email from the organiser.

As mentioned above, we may not be able to assess and verify all non-pre-approved activities due to limitation in resources. Please respect that the Sub-Board’s decision is final.

To maintain legitimacy and standards of ANZBCPS’ board certification program, we must ensure that the quality and source of CPD activities used for board-certification meet strict requirements and standards, above unrealistic claims of low-quality commercial ‘courses’.

Although we understand the importance of multidisciplinary inclusivity and collaboration, to safeguard our board-certification program as being unique to specialist plastic surgeons, we actively endorse and support CPD activities that are run by and for plastic surgeons. This ensures the activities are of appropriate calibre and presented at the level of surgical specialists in plastic surgery.

ASAPS and ANZBCPS’ reputation as leaders in cosmetic surgery is at stake if our board-certification program does not have substantiable criteria in CPD prerequisites.

To give meaning and uphold the value of our certification program we must be stringent in the application of these requirements. This is to protect the interest of ANZBCPS and our board-certified members: if there are any challenges to the validity and value of our board-certification program, ANZBCPS can uphold its legitimacy.

Most importantly, the ANZBCPS board-certification program is under close scrutiny from both competitor organisations as well as regulatory bodies. The quality of CPD activities we chose to approve and include in our program will provide a solid foundation to the board-certification process. We must also ensure that the CPD criteria in AHPRA’s cosmetic surgery regulations are met, including CPD with specific cosmetic surgery content and fulfilling all components of CPD activities (performance review, audit and education).

Lastly, our board-certification logo is a Certification Trademark. To meet the legal requirements of trademarking, the rules for certification must be transparent with specified quality criteria and the trademark can only be awarded if the provider meets the certification standards.