CAP Practice Eligibility Route
Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Practice Eligibility Route (RCPSC CAP PER-sub) - see below for link to draft Applicant Criteria
Message from Dr. John Leverette, Chair, RCPSC Specialty Committee in CAP - January 2012
Dear colleagues:
The RCPSC CAP Specialty Committee has had an eventful 2 months since I presented its recommendation for our Practice Eligibility Route (PER-sub) to you at the AACAP/CACAP Joint Annual meeting. As you will recall, the Specialty Committee worked closely with Royal College (RC) Headquarters staff over late spring and summer to bring forward our PER-sub recommendation and we were reasonably confident it would be favourably received by the RC Credentials Committee in mid October. We recognized that the Credentials Committee might well have some suggestions with wording for clarity and we attended to that with the Committee Chair.
What we were not prepared for was a challenge to the flexibility in training of residents within the PER-sub window. What this refers to is the ability to continue to train residents for careers in CAP via the general psychiatry program with entry to the CAP examination via the PER-sub while our academic divisions across the county build RC approved CAP programs and enter residents into them. In other words, training residents via 2 routes in a transitional period until all academic programs are approved in order to maintain our output of CAP practitioners to meet societal need.
Notwithstanding the assurances that we had on this matter in developing our recommendation, it became clear that this did not conform to current RC policy and the Credentials Committee was asked to forward this matter to its senior committee, the Education Committee, for review in mid-November. The CAP Specialty Committee argued forcefully for this need with support from our primary specialty and the understanding of the Credentials Committee Chair. The Education Committee gave qualified support to the concept of this transitional period, placed an initial boundary around it, and directed the Credentials Committee to study this further and return to it with a final recommendation in the Spring of 2012. We then worked productively with Dr. Ken Harris, the RC Director of Education, to develop what is presented to you in the link below.
The significant changes from that presented at the Joint Annual meeting, apart from formatting, are as follows:
1. For CAP practitioners who have finished or are finishing psychiatry with education majors in CAP prior to the commencement of the first approved CAP program (presumably July 2012), the PER-sub window for exam application will be a minimum of 5 years from July 2012. Dr Harris will be working with Council over the next ½ -1 year to hopefully extend this. Residents completing the primary specialty of psychiatry and wanting to proceed in CAP in July 2012 could obtain a PGY-6 position and proceed thereafter to the exam or use the PER-sub (using time in education and practice) to qualify for the exam.
2. Residents still in the primary specialty wishing to career track in CAP after the commencement of the first approved CAP program (~July 2012) and for whom there may not be sufficient approved programs or sufficient PGY-6 positions, will have a 2-year window after the commencement of the first approved CAP program to complete their training in Psychiatry and will, if necessary, be able qualify for the PER-sub (using time in education and practice to qualify for the exam). Therefore residents as of July 2012 training as PGY-4s and 5s in psychiatry who wish to career track in CAP should be reassured that the PER-sub route will be open to them if they complete the primary specialty by July 2014. In the first quarter of 2012, the Specialty Committees of the three subspecialties will prepare the argument for a longer period of transition and we hope that a recommendation might come from the Credentials Committee to support that.
Below is a link to the draft criteria approved by the RC Office of Education. I have received permission to post this on the CACAP website with the understanding that the criteria still have to go to the next Credentials Committee meeting on March 2, 2012 for final approval.
Application for the PER-sub
Remember that your PER-sub application to take the first CAP examination in the Fall of 2013 must be received by the College no later than 30 August 2012. The application forms should be available by the end of January 2012. The Royal College has invited anyone interested in applying for the PER-sub to e-mail credentials@royalcollege.ca and the College will keep their name on file to receive the application when it is available.
Link to Practice Eligibility Route for Subspecialists (PER-sub)
Draft - Applicant Criteria for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP)
Kind regards,
John S. Leverette, MD, FRCPC Founder Child Adolesc. Psychiatry, FCPA
Chair, RCPSC Specialty Committee in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Queen's University
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