CPD evidence fails at the point of capture, not the point of appraisal. By March, nobody remembers why they looked something up in October, what they misunderstood, or what they meant to change; the portfolio entry gets reconstructed from a calendar invite and reads like it. The fix is a minimum viable record: a short, fixed set of fields captured in the ninety seconds after learning happens, while the details still exist. Here is the field set, why each earns its place, and a template you can copy today.
The thirteen fields
Date, and your professional role or scope at the time, because relevance to scope is the first thing appraisal asks of any CPD and a portfolio GP's Tuesday scope may differ from their Thursday one.
The clinical question or learning objective, in one line, and why the learning arose: a patient, a guideline change, an exam, a gap a question set exposed. Provenance of the need is half the reflection already written.
The source consulted, with its jurisdiction and version date. "NICE guidance, UK, current as of this month" is a different evidential object from "a website", and recording it at capture takes five seconds against five minutes of archaeology later.
Active time, honestly. Not the webinar's advertised ninety minutes but the forty you were engaged; honest durations make the whole record credible, and UK appraisal cares about educational value, not maximised totals.
What was learned, in one or two lines, and, where assessment occurred, that it occurred and what it found: score, and specifically what was initially misunderstood. The named misconception is the single highest-value field in the record; it is the thing you will not remember in March and the thing reflection is actually about.
What action or follow-up is planned, even if the honest entry is "practice confirmed as current, no change". Whether a delayed retest is due, and when, because a record that schedules its own verification is a record that finishes the job.
Finally, your attestation that the record is accurate and your confirmation that it contains no patient-identifiable information, the two lines that make the record yours and safe to export.
The copyable template
Date: | Role/scope: | Question or objective: | Why it arose: | Source (jurisdiction, version date): | Active time: | What I learned: | Assessed? Score and specific misunderstanding: | Planned action or follow-up: | Retest due: | I attest this record is accurate and contains no patient-identifiable information: yes.
Paste it wherever you capture learning; a blank downloadable version and a completed fictional example are on our resources page, and the worked example below shows the fields in action.
A worked fictional example
Date: this week. Role: salaried GP, general scope. Question: perinatal mental health referral thresholds. Why: a question set flagged a high-confidence error on urgency criteria. Source: current national perinatal guidance, UK, checked this month. Active time: 25 minutes. Learned: I had been applying a threshold one severity band too high; corrected via Tutor dialogue against the cited guidance. Assessed: yes; session score 70 percent, the specific misunderstanding named above. Action: apply corrected thresholds; flag to our duty-doctor protocol discussion. Retest: scheduled, three weeks. Attestation: yes.
Ninety seconds of capture, and in appraisal season this entry needs nothing but a closing sentence.
How iatroX fills the fields automatically
Declared interest: this template is also a description of what My CPD captures without being asked. Sessions log date, topic, active time, score and the specific misses; the Tutor dialogue names the misunderstanding and its cited correction; spaced repetition schedules and records the retest; and the reflection and attestation remain deliberately yours, typed in your own words, because current guidance is clear that no tool should write them. Manual capture with the template works everywhere else; the point of the field set is that it travels.
Frequently asked questions
Is thirteen fields not rather a lot for "minimum viable"?
Eleven of them are one line or one word; the whole record is under a minute once habitual. Minimum refers to what appraisal-grade evidence needs, and nothing here is decorative.
Should every lookup get a record?
No: a dose confirmation that taught you nothing is safe practice, not CPD, and recording it manufactures volume without meaning. Reserve the record for genuine learning events, a gap exposed, a misconception corrected, guidance that surprised you, and let the trivial lookups go.
Where should these records live?
Anywhere exportable: your appraisal toolkit, BMJ Portfolio, a document, My CPD. The fields matter more than the container, and a consistent field set makes moving containers painless.
Can the template be shortened further for truly quick captures?
Yes, to a defensible core of five: date, question, source with date, what was misunderstood or learned, and planned action. That five-field capture preserves the entry's substance and can be upgraded to the full record at monthly review; what cannot be reconstructed later is the misconception, so if you keep only one field beyond the basics, keep that one.