CMPT adheres to the philosophy that as a university-based program, there exists a mandate to be education oriented, and to provide a platform to support academic pursuits.

The Canadian Microbiology Proficiency Testing (CMPT) is a service of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and operated at the University of British Columbia. CMPT is a multi-profession directed program that provides clinically relevant external quality challenge materials for the broad scope of tests performed in clinical microbiology. The challenges are directed by international and national standards and guidelines recognized and supported by the Canadian and international community of microbiology laboratories. CMPT adheres to the philosophy that as a university-based program, there exists a mandate to be education oriented, and to provide a platform to support academic pursuits.

Three of CMPT’s microbiology EQA programs produce high value educational critiques that contain: de-identified challenge results from the participant laboratories, a discussion about the results, information on identification, antimicrobial susceptibility, clinical relevancy if applicable, as well as main educational points and evidence from the literature. These critiques are written and discussed by CMPT’s volunteer expert committee members. Each critique represents a unified view of the experts in each discipline. The challenges and their critiques are also designed to present relevant and near real-time updates in the testing guidelines, interpretations, testing processes and have the intention of keeping the microbiology laboratories up to date with the latest developments in clinical microbiology. Although the critiques have been produced and published, many times they would not commonly be read by the laboratory technologists or would sometimes remain in the inbox of laboratory managers.

CMPT committee member Lorraine Campbell, suggested that continuing education credits might be available for technologists for reading the critiques. In 2014, CMPT proposed a course where laboratorians could receive continuing education credits for reading the critiques in the Clinical Bacteriology, Mycology, and Enteric Parasitology programs and answering an on-line quiz. The course was trialed during 2015 with about 50 people participating. A post program survey indicated a very positive response rating the program as Excellent or Very Good and both Educational and Informative. Following the survey, a decision was made to open the CMPT Professional Development Course (PDC) in 2016. This PDC course is now offered free of charge every year to any laboratory technologist/resident working at an institution participating in any of CMPT’s programs. CMPT submitted the Course to be evaluated for Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science (CSMLS) which was assigned PEP (Professional Enhancement Program) hours and CPS (Continual Professional Studies) Technologists can earn up to 24 PEP hours and up to 1.6 CPS.

During the first year, the course had 156 registered participants. 98/156 completed at least one quiz. 52 participants completed at least one category (Clinical Bacteriology, Mycology, or Enteric Parasitology) obtaining a certificate. In 2017, CMPT decided to open the registration to Microbiology residents and other individuals that might be interested which included 5 Microbiology residents, and one participant from Belgium. In addition, CMPT was contacted by Dr. Makeda Semret from McGill University in Montreal, QC. Dr. Semret was involved in a capacity building project in Ethiopia and envisioned CMPT’s course as a potential benefit for continuing education for laboratory technologists. The course was slightly modified to fit the needs of these participants: every week, a new small quiz would be released followed by a general quiz at the end of each module. 5 participants from Ethiopia took advantage of this opportunity with 4 of them obtaining certificates of completion.

In 2017 to 2019 the course had an average of 158 participants. In 2020, the main course administration went on leave but provisions were made so that the course would run on it own not to disrupt the course being offered to the laboratory technologists. During 2020 CMPT had 80 active participants, and although lower than the previous years, their participation during a challenging year where the main administrator of the course was absent, means that these students are committed to learn and find the course useful and valuable. In 2021 and 2022 61 and 47 participants respectively obtained certificates of completion. This is a very high rate of completion considering laboratory technologist were also very busy during the COVID-19 pandemic year.

In 2020 as part of its annual Customer Satisfaction review, CMPT asked for feedback on the Professional Development course. Most respondents indicated that they participated in all three course categories: Clinical Bacteriology, Mycology, and Parasitology. There was strong support for the informational value of the critiques (Figure 1) and most indicated that the course was useful for their learning, keeping up to date with their knowledge in clinical microbiology, and for their professional development (Figure 2).

In addition to responding to the survey questions, the course received many positive comments. Based on this survey we believe that with respect to providing participants with educational, informative value, our participants strongly supported our efforts.

This is very encouraging for us as CMPT not only strives to provide clients with valuable challenges and samples, but to educate the laboratory community to reach the highest quality possible. "It is a well-defined course and beneficial as well."

2023 marks CMPT’s 6th year offering this course and we consider it a great success. We have been again contacted by Dr. Makeda Semret from McGill University to offer the course again to laboratory technologists is Ethiopia as a tool for building capacity. ^1–4This year, 19 students have been registered. We considered the Professional Development course a great success in our effort to bring to the laboratory technologists a tool that is practical, useful, educational, and beneficial for their professional improvement.

Our program office is excited to announce the launch of a new course, "ISO 15189: 2022 Standard for Medical Laboratories: What Labs Need to Know About the Changes." This on-demand, online course is designed to educate laboratory professionals on the latest changes to ISO 15189:2022. The course will be offered through CMPT and its sister program POLQM. For more information on this course, please visit https://polqm.med.ubc.ca/iso-15189/.

We are also planning to offer a Certificate course in Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing and Interpretation in the Fall of 2023. Our goal is to provide laboratory professionals with a variety of educational opportunities that will help them stay up-to-date on the latest industry standards and practices. For more details about this course, please visit https://polqm.med.ubc.ca/ast/.

The LQM 2023 course commenced on January 11, and we are delighted to have 32 participants enrolled from a diverse range of countries, including Canada, Dutch Caribbean, India, Mongolia, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

We are also pleased to announce that our Program Office is organizing the 9th conference on June 19 and 20 at the Center for Brain Health in Vancouver. The theme of this conference will be "Ensuring Quality in the Changing Diagnostic Landscape," and we look forward to welcoming experts and professionals from the industry to share their insights and experiences on this topic.

---