The Pros and Cons of Continuing Education from Nurse Together

As Registered Nurses or Licensed Practical Nurses, fulfilling continuing education credits or units (CEU) is a requirement for the profession—it is necessary for relicensing. In certain states we are required to fulfill a certain number of CEUs every two years. Obtaining an education credit can be accomplished by reading a journal, attending a seminar, watching a video—any of these would relate to the practice of nursing. Completing CEU’s sounds like a wonderful idea, however, some members of the nursing profession disagree. After all, competence has been demonstrated by the proof of licensure and associated renewal, so mandating further credit hours seems redundant. To fully examine the debate: “Should Continuing Education be Mandatory?” consider the following pro versus con arguments:

PROs

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Time to Adapt from H and HN

PHOENIX— If there's one thing I've learned in my 20-plus years as a journalist it's this: listen to the experts. Or did my Mom tell me that? Either way, it's a valuable lesson.

For instance, the old newspaper reporter in me was all set to write a blog focused on the Advanced Payment ACO Program, which is aimed at testing the ACO concept in rural settings and among physician-owned organizations, but when I asked rural administrators and trustees what the highlight was of day one at the 25th Rural Health Care Leadership Conference, a number of them immediately mentioned the opening keynote address by Bridget Duffy, M.D., CEO of ExperiaHealth. Before joining the San Francisco-based company, Duffy was chief experience officer at the Cleveland Clinic. Her message today: hospitals need to focus on creating an exceptional patient experience. Central to that, she says, is for all staff at the hospital to show compassion or empathy for patients. It's something that is lacking throughout health care, she says. It's also something my colleague Bill Santamour has been writing about recently in H&HN Daily.

For the full article please go here.

The Pros and Cons of Continuing Education from Nurse Together

As Registered Nurses or Licensed Practical Nurses, fulfilling continuing education credits or units (CEU) is a requirement for the profession—it is necessary for relicensing. In certain states we are required to fulfill a certain number of CEUs every two years. Obtaining an education credit can be accomplished by reading a journal, attending a seminar, watching a video—any of these would relate to the practice of nursing. Completing CEU’s sounds like a wonderful idea, however, some members of the nursing profession disagree. After all, competence has been demonstrated by the proof of licensure and associated renewal, so mandating further credit hours seems redundant. To fully examine the debate: “Should Continuing Education be Mandatory?” consider the following pro versus con arguments:

For the full article please go here.

The Critical Need for Continuing Education from Nurse Together

In writing my book and preparing educational courses for nurses, I have devoted much study to critical thinking and its application to nursing. While critical thinking is a very large subject with many parts, one component stands out in our world of evolving technology, mass communication and frequent research updates; accurate information.

In our initial training, we were exposed to the most up-to-date information available. This was the frequently cited reason for always having to purchase the newest edition of text books. We dutifully studied and were tested on information that would allow us to practice state of the art nursing. Later, we were tested on this same information to earn our license. After all of this training and testing, we were set free to be nurses. Having graduated from my nurses training in 1973, there was no continuing education requirement for my state at that time.

For the full article please go here.