Certifications And CE

i was thinking getting the first aid certification might help and i think some states require rns to have first aid. my state does not. it is $80 and 4 hours class...so will it help?

i'm in the camp that no learning is ever wasted. you might be on a bus someday and... be able to help someone.

also, i was looking through a nursing magazine and it had a continuing education 1 hour 'class' in it. i answered the questions and returned it with $8 to get the ce.

will it help to get the ce?

help what? see above. no learning is ever wasted.

also should i get acls certification on my own?

not a lot of point to doing that if you don't have a good familiarity c ekgs and a job to use it in, in my opinion. if you get an er/icu/pacu job that requires it, they'll probably pay for you to take it (and give you the time off c pay, too).

is bls the same as the cpr all rns carry?

probably. it's a minimum qualification for most health care jobs.

check to see if your state requires a certain amount of continuing education to renew your license. also consider that you may not have any certifications yet, but if and when you do, they will certainly require ceus to recertify every 2-5 years. if you have more than one certification, your ceus can be used for each of them (assuming they're appropriate). for example, two of my certifications accept ceus that cover pretty much the same material. i have learned that online ceus can be very interesting, but not all of them are accepted because they are too short-- at least one of my certs won't accept any offering less than a full contact hour, so that rules out the 30-minute specials. i do some of them anyway because they're cool.

more than you wanted to know?

waste of money IMHO. RN's are expected to know WAY more than first aid. Spend your money on job searching

BLS is Basic Life Support for the Health Care Provider the AHA offers Heart Saver which is CPR for the lay provider. In most hospitals you are required to be AHA BLS certified.

I agree about the 'your job will help you get ACLS' however if you have the means it would help if you find you are having a hard time getting a job.