Finding Nursing Continuing Education Courses
As with so many professions, nurses have to take a regular series of classes as part of their nursing continuing education courses.
Many are Free
First and foremost, some of the nursing continuing education courses available online don’t cost you anything. The key factor with such classes is to be sure that they meet your state’s continuing education requirements. Check with your state’s professional regulatory department, and they can give you a list of approved and accredited schools.
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Expand Your Area of Expertise
Very often nurses – like doctors – will specialize in one area: paediatrics, surgery, intensive care, and so on. But, in the event of budget cutbacks, you may find your position terminated. By taking nursing continuing education courses in other areas of medicine, you can expand the hospital departments where you can work, and thus make you more valuable to the hospital.
Staying Current
Nursing, like so many occupations these days, is quite dynamic and always changing. As new medications, equipment and procedures keep coming out, you need to be up to date with them so as to stay vital to the doctor and/or hospital where you work. In some cases, the manufacturers of the equipment and the pharmaceutical companies will host the nursing continuing education courses.
The Cost of the Courses
As previously stated, many nursing continuing education courses are free, but some are not. With those, be sure to keep track of all of your expenses, and that includes more than just the cost of the classes. If you have to drive somewhere to attend the class, keep track of your mileage. If you have to stay overnight at a hotel and buy meals, keep all of those receipts as well. Every little bit can help with your taxes.
Taking Classes Online
There are also a number of nursing continuing education courses you can take online. Before signing up for any of them, make sure that the school is accredited in your state, and that the state regulatory agency will accept their credits. Typically, these will be non-technical classes like ethics, drug abuse, health and nutrition, and even alternative medicine treatments. You can study about the healing effects of laughter and home birthing techniques. Among the technical classes are things such as EKG review and studying about hepatitis and diseases of the liver.
Consult Your State for its Requirements
As with any regular profession, your state will have specific requirements as to the number of nursing continuing education courses you have to take in a given time period. Some states require you to take a technical class and some sort of legal or ethical class, and they each have to be of a certain number of hours. If you can’t find individual classes that meet those requirements, you can often take multiple classes, just so long as their hours add up to what your state requires. Also, some states will only allow you to submit the necessary hours for that year’s continuing education. If you earn extra hours, you can’t count them. In some cases, a state may allow you to count those nursing continuing education courses toward next year, but you have to check with the regulatory agency.
