Doctors move; their learning obligations do not move with them so much as transform. The same hour of clinical learning is CPD in London, potentially CME in Boston, a Mainpro+ or MOC entry in Toronto, part of a 50-hour CPD Home programme in Sydney, and an ECM question in Milan. The underlying activity is identical; what differs is the regulatory frame, the units, the accreditation machinery and, crucially, what any platform can honestly claim on your behalf. This guide maps the systems side by side, with links into our country-specific deep dives.
United Kingdom: principles, not credits
The GMC requires CPD relevant across your whole scope of practice, reflected on meaningfully, feeding annual appraisal and five-yearly revalidation; there is no national credit total, and quality is explicitly preferred to quantity. Royal College schemes layer structure on top, the Federation's physician scheme has credit categories; the RCGP emphasises impactful, well-reflected learning, but the regulator's currency is relevance and reflection. An appropriate platform label here is a CPD learning record or assessed CPD record: documentation of activity, assessment, reflection and retesting suitable for portfolio upload, with no claim of "accredited credits" unless a recognised accreditor has approved the specific activity.
United States: CME, and the credit that requires a provider
American physicians accumulate CME against state licensing and board requirements, with AMA PRA Category 1 Credit as the dominant currency. Category 1 must be designated by an accredited provider or recognised pathway; no ordinary software platform can simply declare its use worth Category 1 credit. Category 2 is different: self-designated and self-claimed by the individual physician for worthwhile, non-promotional learning, which is where self-directed digital learning naturally sits pre-accreditation. The ACCME explicitly recognises internet point-of-care learning as an educational format, our full US guide is at /blog/does-point-of-care-searching-count-as-cme-united-states, so the honest platform posture is a Learning Log supporting the physician's own Category 2 documentation, until and unless an accredited-provider relationship exists.
Canada: two systems, one country
Family physicians answer to the CFPC's Mainpro+, currently 250 credits over five years with at least 25 annually, across certified, certified-assessment and non-certified categories; certified status requires CFPC-compliant approval. Specialists answer to the Royal College's MOC programme, likewise 250 over five years and 25 annually, with credits across its sections and specific requirements for Section 3 assessment activities. The practical division for any platform: activity can be documented now, and provisionally mapped to non-certified or individual-learning categories, while certified and Section 1 or 3 claims require the programmes' own approval routes. The two-system detail matters enough that we compare them properly at /blog/mainpro-plus-vs-royal-college-moc-ai-assisted-learning.
Australia: hours, homes and three activity types
Since the current framework took effect, Australian doctors complete 50 hours of CPD each calendar year under a registered CPD Home, spread across educational activities, reviewing performance and measuring outcomes in the prescribed combination. Question practice is most naturally an educational activity; baseline-and-reassessment designs may support reviewing performance; genuine outcome measurement generally needs more than any quiz can supply. Classification ultimately belongs to the clinician and their CPD Home, so the correct platform behaviour is CPD Home-ready evidence, recorded richly, classified by you. The nuances are worth their own page: /blog/australia-50-hour-cpd-framework-qbanks-reflection-outcomes.
Europe and Italy: accreditation as the gate
Across Europe, EACCME accreditation under UEMS turns educational activities, including e-learning, into ECMEC credits, with mutual recognition arrangements reaching the AMA and the Royal College in Canada; without accreditation, digital learning is still learning, but it is not ECMEC. Italy runs its own national ECM system through AGENAS, with accredited providers, the Co.Ge.A.P.S. record and defined routes for foreign training; an EACCME certificate is not automatically Italian ECM credit. Our European and Italian guides, /blog/eaccme-digital-medical-learning-accreditation and /blog/italy-ecm-digital-medical-learning, cover what platforms and clinicians each need to do.
The comparison at a glance
Fixed totals: none nationally in the UK; state-by-state in the US; 250 per five years in both Canadian systems; 50 hours annually in Australia; provider-defined in EACCME contexts; national rules in Italy. Point-of-care learning: recognised in the US as a CME format, absorbable in the UK and Australia as reflective CPD or educational activity, category-dependent in Canada. Assessment: rewarded everywhere, formally required in specific places, Canadian certified-assessment and Section 3, Australian reviewing-performance designs, elements of accredited European e-learning. And in every jurisdiction the same platform truth holds: a system can document activity, assessment, reflection and retention with complete honesty; awarding credit is the regulator's and accreditor's gift, never software's.
What iatroX claims, jurisdiction by jurisdiction
Our own labels follow exactly that line. UK: assessed CPD records for portfolio upload. US: a Learning Log supporting your own Category 2 documentation. Canada: learning records provisionally mapped to non-certified or Section 2 territory, pending programme rules. Australia: CPD Home-ready evidence for your classification. Europe and Italy: jurisdiction-neutral learning records, exportable, with accreditation-dependent claims clearly marked as such. The country selector changes fields, terminology and disclaimers, not just the word for CPD, because pretending the systems are interchangeable is how platforms mislead and doctors get caught out.
Frequently asked questions
I work across two systems; do I keep two records?
Keep one honest record with rich fields, source, jurisdiction, time, assessment, reflection, and export it under each system's rules; the field set travels even where the labels do not. Duplication of learning is unnecessary; duplication of paperwork sometimes is not.
Do delayed retests count anywhere formally?
Retention evidence strengthens a record in every system and is formally rewarded where assessment categories exist; nowhere is it penalised. It is the rare artefact that is universally legible.