Recertification for doctors with a general and vocational scope

How this might look for you

If you are registered and practising in a vocational scope of practice as well as in the General scope of practice, you will need to meet recertification programme requirements in both scopes of practice. Here's how that looks.

• Vocational scope – you must participate in the accredited college or Vocational Education and Advisory Body (VEAB) recertification programme.

• General scope – you must participate in an approved medical college training programme related to your other area of medicine, or arrange your own continuing professional development (CPD) with the help of a colleague. (This could be through a collegial relationship with a doctor who holds vocational registration in that area of medicine).

For example, if you hold a vocational scope in General Practice and you also work in internal medicine at the local District Health Board, you should participate in the RNZCGP CPD programme, and either be enrolled in the RACP’s internal medicine training programme, or be in a collegial relationship with a doctor who holds vocational registration in Internal Medicine.

If you choose to arrange your own CPD through a collegial relationship:

• you must spend 50 hours each year on continuing professional development related to the work you are doing within your general scope, including:
  • one audit of medical practice each year
  • at least 10 hours a year of peer review
  • at least 20 hours a year of continuing medical education (CME)
• your CPD must be relevant to the type of practice applicable to you; you can see these on pages 4 and 5 of Council’s publication Recertification & professional development
• you must record your CPD on Council’s forms, which can be downloaded from our fees, forms and checklists page
• if audited, you must provide the completed Council forms to show you are meeting the Council’s recertification requirements.

• Recertification and continuing professional development

  1 April 2018 (PDF, 290 KB)

  All doctors practising in New Zealand must recertify through a New Zealand-based recertification programme.. This booklet outlines the recertification programme requirements as they apply to doctors who are registered and practising in New Zealand.

• Forms, fees and checklists

  22 May 2019

  This page contains a full list of our forms including application, report and referee forms, as well as checklists and the current fees payable.

• Recertification programmes

  11 May 2019

  If you hold a vocational registration you must participate in the continual professional development (CPD) programme offered by the medical college responsible for your area of vocational practice.