Continuing professional development to foster behaviour change: From principles to practice in health professions education

Healthcare professionals need to continuously improve their knowledge, skills and performance to effectively function in an ever-changing healthcare environment. They depend on continuing professional development programs (CPD), either within or outside their institutions, to reflect on and update their clinical practice. Professional growth requires more than knowledge transfer; it requires curiosity, humility, self-awareness and a motivation for mastery. Educators can build on these factors and create effective learning experiences to develop complex skills including communication, interprofessional collaboration, teamwork, leadership and reflective practice. CPD program leaders should adopt an evolved approach to program design that leverages adult learning principles, active learning and longitudinal curricula, while identifying and overcoming system barriers to change, and targeting meaningful behaviour and health outcomes. In this article, we describe principles and strategies that CPD leaders can apply to their own programs, categorized under three steps: (1) Program design, (2) Program implementation and (3) Program evaluation. Under each step, we provide theoretical principles as well as practical tips, focusing on strategies that can motivate and facilitate change.