NURSE CEU
Mandatory Nurse CEU's. Everybody dreads them. You have to have them
for certification and in many cases for nursing license renewal. I
want to tell you about a few ways you can get your nursing CEU credits
painlessly and in a fun way! Are you ready? Attend a nursing
convention for your state or national nursing association! Yes, I said
that. The reason you want to attend your regional, state or national
nursing association convention is you can pick up 30-40 nurse continuing
education credits and have a fun,
educational, and relaxing vacation from work while you do it.
Most nursing associations have a three to five day convention which they sponsor
either annually or bi-annually. During the convention they offer
educational classes on hot topics in the specialty or specific to nursing. They
also may offer classes on legal, regulatory, ethical, or for specific skills.
For example, my state association brought in one of the top experts on HIPAA one
year and gave everyone who attended the state convention a chance to attend a
four hour class on everything you ever wanted to know about HIPAA. CEU
credit for that class was 4 contact hours. And there were approximately 36
hours offered during that state convention if I attended every class that was
available.
The other fun thing about these nurse CEU opportunities
is they usually pick someplace fun to hold them. I went to a nursing convention
in Las Vegas one year. In addition to to picking up 30 CEU's that week I
managed to see the sights in Vegas and played some of the slot
machines during my off time. One of my co-workers attended a nursing
convention in Orlando FL one year. She arranged to stay a couple of extra
days after the convention ended and took her children to Disney World. She
saved money because her job flew her to Orlando and flew her back. And she
picked up approximately 24 contact hours. I think you are getting the
idea.
The beauty of this strategy is that many employers will help
pay for travel, hotel expenses and the sign up fees for attending the
convention. It comes under the heading of "Professional Development" and
it gives them a better nurse. You get the chance to network, learn new
things, and catch up on the latest developments in your specialty. All
while earning a big batch of Nurse CEU's.
A partial list of potential nursing
conventions includes the American Nurses Association, American Association
of Critical Care Nurses, Case Managers Society of America, your state nursing
association, and even advanced practice nurses associations.
Of
course, not everyone can get away to attend a conference or attend CEU classes
in person. When that happens there is always doing your nurse CEU classes
online. I have reviewed three top sites for obtaining CEU or Contact Hours
online.
The first thing I typed into my search browser was nurse ceu. I also tried
nursing CEUs, nurse continuing education, free nurse ceu and nurse ceu online.
A number of good sites were discovered along the way with three being the
most notable or the easiest to use. I have to admit that the fact that they came
up in the top five picks with my browser searches for almost every key word I
tried gave them a big A +. These are not all the sites out there. But these are
directly related to the topic, they are not a directory and I found them to be
very user friendly.
Myfreece.com Every one loves the try before you buy model don't
they? Isn't that why we test drive cars, sign up for free memberships and go for
the "no payments for 6 months" type of sales pitches? That's exactly what
myfreece.com does. You can sign up for unlimited CE's for $29.95 per year. If
you want to test drive the system first just go ahead and register. Once you are
registered they let you take any of their CE offerings, including the test. The
one little catch is they won't let you print out your CE certificate. The only
drawback I could find was the Nursing continuing education classes offered are
limited to 1-4 CE's each. The advantages are they are completely online; the
classes are short and easily mastered and they can print your CE certificate out
immediately. This site is our Alphatraveler top pick.
MyFreeCE.com
RN.com I clicked on www.rn.com and thought I would probably like the
free "education planner" and the unlimited contact hours offered by the
"unlimited Education Club" which features an annual membership fee of $69. They
claim to have 200 contact hours worth of classes and instant certificates which
you can print out. Of course, if you are just looking for 1 or 2 CE's they will
let you buy CE's at $9.95 per CE. They are also linked to a more global site
dedicated to the nursing profession. This site has a little more substance but
it is not strictly a nursing continuing education only site.
Western Schools For
the bargain hunter in all of us
Western
Schools is hard to beat. They have a featured 30 CE class for only $19.95.
Other offerings vary in price. They also have a downloadable catalog. Western
Schools is one of those rare businesses online that was already well established
prior to the internet. They continue a mail order approach to the CE industry
with a nice internet site with the opportunity to register online and have all
their offers customized to fit you. A strong advantage this company has is that
many of the online CE's offered only range from 1-4 CE's. If you need a large
amount of CE's in one class or you want something a little more in depth this is
the one to go with.