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.