On September 12th, we hosted our first ever virtual Annual General Meeting (AGM). Though our main reason for choosing this format was keeping our attendees safe, we saw other advantages as well. We thought that the virtual format would make it easier for more people to attend because of the reduced time commitment and no travel. It definitely did! Compared to recent AGMs, we had significantly more attendees this year.
Thank you to everyone who joined us! Having more people attend our AGM was great. But, what makes it a real success to us is how engaged you were. You participated with questions, comments and feedback – the meeting chat forum was busy! There were a few questions we didn’t get to answer during the meeting. We’ve included them below, with answers.
During the AGM, we reviewed our activities during the 2019-20 year including:
- Council’s activities
- how we responded to the COVID-19 Pandemic and changing legislation
- our Registration Practices, Program Approval and the Competence Program
- Audited Financial Statements
For those of you who missed the AGM, we invite you to review our 2019-20 Annual Report.
We hope you can join us at our next AGM. For the immediate future, due to COVID-19, we’ll only be hosting virtual events or meetings.
AGM Questions and Answers
I have been a RDA for 15+ years. This last year having us have to print off our practice permits I understand saves money within the College, however, as it hangs on the wall within the office and seeing it by the RDH and DDS/DMD ours tend to look very cheap and unprofessional. Is it possible to relook at the practice permits to show that we are professionals and not “just” RDA’s?
Our main reason for moving to the online Practice Permit was to ensure you always have access to a permit with your current information such as name, expiry, condition(s), and advanced practices. If you’re concerned about the appearance of your permit when you print it, here are some things to try:
- print your permit on good quality paper and adjust your print settings to high quality output
- take the PDF of your permit to a print/copy shop and have them print it for you
Will the college be looking at forgoing any parts of the annual requirements during the current pandemic? It is my understanding that RN’s college have done this for their members. With the continuous changes this year I feel that con Ed should be revised
We won’t be making any changes to our Continuing Competence Program (CCP) requirements because of the pandemic. Our CCP was designed with flexibility in mind. We recognize a variety of learning activities (including things like online and self-study learning) and practice hours. This variety gives you options when meeting your CCP requirements.
Do you have any specific courses you recommend taking for our next reporting period?
No, we don’t recommend specific courses for the upcoming registration cycle. The best way to figure out what to learn to benefit your own practice is to use the Competence Self-Assessment every year. It helps you identify the competencies you should plan your learning objectives around. Then, you look for learning activities to support your objectives.
All other oral health colleges (4) have a competency program that requires a minimum number of education hours per year. What is the rationale for our college having significantly less requirements? How does Council feel that this difference reflects on the way those 4 other professions see RDAs in terms of respect and valuing our competence?
The Health Professions Act requires that all regulatory colleges have a competence program. The colleges then have the authority to define their own program through regulation and put the specific details within policy. There is a lot of variety in how the regulatory colleges have designed their competence programs. We chose to base our CCP on a self-reflection model. This give you the flexibility to identify and choose learning objectives that fit your individual practice role. Then you can participate in suitable learning activities that fit your learning style, schedule and needs.
There are several factors that may influence how a profession is perceived and we can’t speak on behalf of other health professions. In the absence of research, it wouldn’t be fair for us to say whether the difference in CCPs impacts the way other professions view you in terms of respect and valuing your competence.
Will the college consider offering online learning, chat groups through your website? chat groups – meaning study groups sorry, words not coming to me this morning
Our current plans don’t include chat or study groups. We did recently launch our online Professional Practice Learning Centre. You’ll find the Patient Relations Learning Module and the Ethics Learning Module there. We’re working on developing more regulatory-focused modules to help you better understand your responsibilities as a regulated health care professional. We’ll add them as they’re ready.
Is it a possible to review the wages for a RDA in Alberta and increasing it?
Reviewing salaries and benefits of registrants is not within our role as a regulatory body. We encourage you to reach out to one of the dental assisting associations in Alberta. They offer membership services which can include reviewing salaries and benefits.
Is there any plans to make an app for CADA?
Our current plans don’t include developing an app for the College. However, we recently updated our website and Portal. They are both designed to work on all screen sizes and you should find them more user-friendly than our previous ones.
Will we receive confirmation that we attentded this meeting and can we list it as a completed learning objective?
We won’t be sending confirmation of attendance at the AGM. If you attended the AGM and would like to use it as a learning activity towards one of your learning objectives, you can use any of these as your verification of learning:
- your meeting registration email
- the agenda
- the PowerPoint slide deck
just because the poll results show 80% are back to work we need to remember that is not an accurate representation of the entire college because it is safe to say that 100% of the college are not in attendance today… I am wanting to know if because of layoffs and assistants being out of work due to the pandemic will there be some leeway given to having enough practise hours to recertify this year?
We won’t be making any broad exemptions to waive practice hours due to the pandemic. Like our other Continuing Competence Program (CCP) requirements, the practice hours requirement is flexible. At CCP audit time you need to provide verification of 300 practice hours for the preceding three years.
is it possible to not have the practise hours be a component of renewal for this year due to pandemic circumstances?
You aren’t required to have a minimum number of hours every year to be eligible to renew your permit. Though we encourage you to have about 100 hours per year, we accept 300 hours in a three-year period. If you are short hours this year, you can complete them next year, or you may have already met the hours requirement last year. In lieu of practice hours you may complete an in-school clinical refresher course or the National Board clinical practice evaluation. Or, you may demonstrate your practice is current through other substantially equivalent means.