Posts Tagged ‘Nursing Continuing Education’

Online Nursing Continuing Education – Right For Working Nurses

March 8th, 2010



Nurses can earn Continuing Education credit by attending conferences, seminars, workshops, or by enrolling in online nursing continuing education courses. One Continuing Education Unit is equivalent to ten contact hours. A contact hour is defined as 50 consecutive minutes of participation in a class or activity approved by a nursing board.

Apply For An Online Course

There are numerous accredited online nursing continuing education courses available at very reasonable rates. You can complete the online nursing education courses from the comforts of your home. No need to sacrifice your working hours. Completing an online nursing continuing education course is very easy. Simply choose the course and study it. Then you pass the test and complete the evaluation form. After this you can register and pay the fee. Then you can print the certificate showing successful completion of the course.

In this competitive world, it is simply not enough to have a single degree. To maintain your competitiveness in the workplace, you have to continuously educate yourself. Online nursing degree programs are designed for working nurses to help them evolve in their careers. There are various nursing degree programs available at all levels. You can pursue a diploma, BSN, MSN, or a doctoral program from the comforts of your home and without sacrificing a single hour of work. If you already have a BSN degree, you can pursue an online nursing master degree and become a leader in your profession. There is no shortage of schools offering online nursing education programs.

The changing scenario in the nursing field would make online nursing continuing education degree programs more important for working nurses. Nurses need to put in long hours at work. Along with that they have families to take care of. This makes it impossible for most of them to earn a degree through a regular nursing college. Online nursing degree programs have not only met the educational aspirations of thousands of working nurses, but have also provided the healthcare industry with trained nurses. Without the online programs, the shortages of nurses would have been more acute.

Times have sure changed. There was a time when online education was looked down upon. Today online degrees are offered in every field. Many employers strongly encourage their nurses to pursue online nursing continuing education programs. Online programs have become a convenient means of advancing one’s career. Online education is not education made easy but education made convenient. The idea behind online nursing degree programs is to provide education to working nurses so that they can grow in their professional fields.

By: Ekta Jain

Nursing Continuing Education Seminars

November 13th, 2009



The word “Seminar” comes from the Latin word “semen,” meaning “seed.” Just as a seed helps the plant to grow, Seminars help professionals to grow by unlocking their full potential.

Seminars are discussion forums in which small groups of students interact with a teacher to discuss a specific topic. Since the mid ‘90s, with the advent of the Internet, `face-to-face’ or `in-person’ Seminars are increasingly supported or sometimes even replaced by `computer aided’ ones. The latter don’t require participant’s in-person attendance.

Whether face-to-face or computer-aided, NCE Seminars are events where professional people discuss problem-solving approaches. They may review case studies, participate in role play or computer-assisted simulations, attend lectures, participate in roundtable discussions with experts or take tests and exams. They acquire powerful learning experience applicable to new situations. NCE Seminars offer tremendous possibilities for nurses to actively collaborate with expert faculty and peers [from different states or countries] under one roof.

Seminars usually last one or two days. Face-to-face Seminars often provide a continental breakfast and/or lunch to the participants.

As far as face-to-face Seminars are concerned, most often, participants from different areas gather at one place, say a teaching hospital, where experts are invited and Seminars held. Some Seminars are tailor-made to suit the specific requirements of the participants in any one area or hospital, and held in-house in this location. Such Seminars have great advantages, as they address specific issues that are unique to the organization. If the participants are large in number, an on-site Seminar is more economical.

There are Seminars that are held exclusively for the benefit of earning credits and provide some kind of measurable results to the participants.

Using Internet search tools, one can search for Seminars by topic or by region and choose from an array of them. There are several Seminar providers whose curriculum includes hundreds of courses to choose from.

By: Richard Romando

Free Nursing Continuing Education

October 21st, 2009



There are many organizations that offer accredited, Free Continuing Education courses through their websites. These are mostly demo or pre-registration versions. Registration in these sites is free. Once the aspirant registers, the website sends the password by email. This password can be used to access all info, such as the list of courses available, cost and number of hours allotted for each course, and FAQs.

For instance, http://www.nursingmatters.com hosts one pre-registration, free course every month. For November it is a 1-hour course on `Pediatric Psychopharmacology’.

The range of programs offered by these sites is astoundingly broad and include topics such as the following: Age-Specific Considerations in Patient Care, An Overview of Alzheimer’s Disease, Breastfeeding: The Basics, ECG Interpretation: Learning the Basics, Ecstasy: Under the Influence, Latex Allergy: More Than Skin Deep, Perspectives on Childhood Poisoning, Performance Improvement: A Change for the Better, and What’s up at the Joint? New Tracer Methodology. While most courses are of 1 or 2 hours’ duration, some may go up to 8 hours or more depending upon the topic concerned.

Many of these courses use multimedia and communicational platforms such as interactivity, voicemail, video conferencing and more. They also incorporate highly interactive seminars and assessment sessions. At the end of any course, the end user can take an assessment test and get his performance evaluated instantly. All these can be done at any time that is convenient to the end user.

Several Continuing Education organizations offer free courses to nurses, particularly in times of human need. One such course is `Hurricane Katrina: Preventing Infectious Diseases’, a 1.5-hour course offered by Wild Iris Medical Education, as advertised in their website http://www.nursingceu.com. Such courses can be a boon to the community.

By: Richard Romando