Air Force Nurse professional development opportunities

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Does anyone know about additional developmental opportunities for nurses in the AF? I've looked into AFIT & CCATT, but are there any other schools or TDYs? The Army has things like Pathfinder and Airborne, does the AF have anything similar?

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Specializes in Adult Critical Care.

The Air Force does have some macho-esq stuff. A lot of it is in the special tactics community (the AF's version of special ops). Nurses can try out for the Special Operations Surgical Team (SOST). If you make that, you'll get all the macho stuff you could ever ask for.

Some of it is dual or tri-service, meaning you could do it no matter what branch you join. For example, CCCC (4C): Combat Casualty Care Course, focuses on battlefield medicine and is hosted by Navy Corpsmen I believe. Air Force nurses absolutely can attend the Army's Expert Field Medic Badge course; I know an several AF nurses who wear the patch.

As far as classroom-based development (besides graduate degrees with AFIT), AF nurses can attend basic, intermediate, and advanced professional military education in residence (i.e. squadron officer school, Air Command and Staff College, and Air War College). And, you have the opportunity to apply to attend those courses with other branches too if you apply and get accepted to it.

Nurses can apply to developmental fellowships in management, informatics, research, and many others. Nurses in command jobs go to courses in leadership and military law.

There are many others that I'm not mentioning. Suffice to say there is ample opportunity if you go after it.

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