OSPE - The Voice - Fall 2013 - (Page 20)

ADVOCACy IN ACTION &COUNTERPO NT ! PO!NT THE CON IN CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT By Patrick J. Quinn, P.Eng For many years, on an annual basis at minimum, PEO Council is reminded that we have no formal requirement for continuing competency. We hear dire warnings that, if we don't enact this system ourselves, it will be imposed on us by an irate public. Now we have OSPE, with a vested interest, recommending that engineers be forced into expensive CPD programmes, which OSPE will be only too happy to provide. Invariably, there are calls for studies, task forces and action before the public insists on change. Professional competency deserves the attention of the public and is clearly within the realm of a regulator. Professional development and continuing education have less compelling interest to the public. If an engineer has a basic education that allows him to competently perform a fairly routine task, like designing a beam, and he is content to do this for a lifetime, no public issues ensue. Truthfully, it is almost that basic for the vast majority of engineers. Only a few have the ambition or need that puts continuing skill development in their or the public's interest. While the latter may have the greatest risk to society, by their very boutique nature they become immune to little more than design standards for regulation. Across the professions and with several provincial engineering regulators, some form of continuing competency is assessed by reporting or inspection processes that attempt to standardize requirements. In Quebec, ex-police investigators randomly drop into offices for inspections. In Alberta, engineers fill in forms annually, which must be sorted, assessed and stored. If one decides to drop out of such regimes, which happens more frequently than is reported, one continues what one was previously doing under some other guise. As one defendant leaving a PEO hearing said when asked what he had learned, "Don't put your stamp on anything unless you have to." Reading our Blue Pages, a procession of structural engineers is invariably charged with incompetence. Equally invariably, the charge is dropped, possibly because of the difficulty of separating error from incompetence. The engineer 2 0 TheVoice Fall 2013 who submits some inadequately designed structure, the engineer who falsifies reports or the engineer who forges a document - these cases are about character not competence. These cannot be regulated except by a strict regime of striking them from our profession when we find them. The example of disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith is one of many on the impossibility of effective compulsory continuing competency. Here was an exalted expert who gave lectures, published papers. He was later shown to be totally incompetent, with devastating consequences. The line between error and incompetence is often a difficult judgment. In the real world, in all cases of failure, a confluence of errors is required. Competency is not about making mistakes, it is about understanding our limits with some humility and ethics. My father taught me to accept failure as part of the human condition but clearly differentiated between inadvertent error and blithely failing to recognize risks. In my career in a leading design office, mistakes were common and expected and routinely picked up. The real concern around competency was the passing of a condition that could be part of the confluence that makes for a failure. There should be debates about professional development, but the continuation or expansion of pseudo-regulatory regimes of continuing competency needs real critical evaluation. Until a meaningful study of the costly paper process of Alberta's programme shows measurable benefits in the competence of Alberta engineers - or more public trust in its engineers - there is no evidence to suggest that we in Ontario should go down this path. That is not to say that our profession need not be timely or creative in conscientiously improving ourselves as professionals. The search for perfection should recognize its limitations and not be a waste of our time. Patrick J. Quinn, P.Eng., FCAE, is cofounder and principal of Quinn Dressel Associates. He is a past president of Professional Engineers Ontario and a supporter of professional development for engineers who need it.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of OSPE - The Voice - Fall 2013

OSPE - The Voice - Fall 2013
Contents
Viewpoint
Newsbytes
Engineers of Influence/WEAC Fall Forum
OSPE-PEO Chapter BBQs
Tom Anselmi, P.Eng.
Profile: Bill and Bob Goodings
The 66th Annual Professional Engineers Awards Gala
Now Hiring Engineers?
Preparing New Grads for Employment
Canada’s Engineering Labour Market
Point & Counterpoint
Tackling Transit
OSPE Political Action Network in Full Swing
Energy Planning
Elliot Lake Inquiry
Intellectual Property
Learn, Develop, Grow Your Career
Grow Your Engineering Team

OSPE - The Voice - Fall 2013