The problem
Podiatrists need to keep up with guidance on diabetic foot care, wound management and nail surgery, but a national guideline can run to 100 pages or more and new papers keep coming. If a podiatrist sets aside 6 hours a month for CPD reading and spends half of it finding the sections that matter, that's 3 hours a month that isn't learning.
What the AI does
Claude reads PDFs of up to 1,000 pages, up to 20 files in one chat, on every plan. The podiatrist uploads a guideline or a set of papers and asks for a digest: the main recommendations, what changed from the previous version, and anything that affects their own practice, such as when to refer, with the page number for each point. The podiatrist then reads those pages properly and writes the CPD reflection in their own words. No patient details go in, so the personal Pro plan is enough. Clinical decisions and CPD records remain the podiatrist's responsibility under their HCPC registration.
A worked example
A podiatrist running a two-room clinic in Shrewsbury, with many diabetic patients, uses Claude Pro each month to digest a guideline or a few papers before reading the parts that matter for the clinic.
Before
6 hours a month of CPD reading, about 3 of them spent finding the relevant sections
After
About 3.5 hours: 30 minutes for the digest, then 3 hours reading and reflecting on the pages it points to
What it's worth
About $150£113€134A$217C$212 a month in time saved, against about $17£13€15A$25C$24 to $20£15€18A$29C$28 for Claude Pro. 2.5 hours saved a month (6 hours down to 3.5), at an assumed $60£45€54A$86C$85 an hour.
How to set it up
- Sign up for Claude Pro, $17 (about $17£13€15A$25C$24) a month billed annually or $20 (about $20£15€18A$29C$28) monthly, and create a Project for the year's CPD sources.
- Upload the guideline or papers you have the right to use as text PDFs. Never upload patient notes or photos.
- Ask for the main recommendations, what changed from the previous version and what affects your own practice, with page numbers.
- Read the referenced pages yourself and check each point; delete any you can't find.
- Write the CPD record and reflection in your own words, saying what you read and how it changes your practice.
What goes wrong
- Claude can misstate a threshold or a referral criterion. Check every point at the page cited before it changes practice.
- In PDFs over 100 pages only text is read, so pathways and tables printed as images can be missed. Look at those pages yourself.
- The CPD record should describe your own learning, so write the reflection yourself rather than copying the digest.
- Pro is a personal plan where training on chats is opt-out. Anything about patients stays in the clinic system.