ER nurses- what do they do for your staff education?

[alreinsch]

I am doing a nurse residency research project. I am trying to develop different scenarios for continuing education for my ED. This is supposed to be pretty informal within our department.

Does your ED have continued education?

Is it a monthly meeting/quarterly/1:1 teaching/etc?

Who does the teaching? (higher ups or other floor nurses)?

Any suggestions about what your unit does for 'informal' education would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

This thread has been moved to our Emergency Nursing forum to assure that you receive responses and feedback from individuals who are working as ER nurses.

[WKShadowNP, DNP, APRN]

We have annual competencies to complete that are both specific to the unit and our equipment/expertise and to RN specific (ergo, company wide RN competencies).

Required certifications such as BLS, ACLS, TNCC, PALS, ENPC are renewed as specified by the sponsored entity.

[CX_EDRN]

We have monthly staff meetings which include CE, usually a dr in a specialized field will hold a 1 hr class on varying topics. Then we have an annual competency fair, our required certs and a ton of learning options in healthstream. My ED also hosts EMS conferences we can attend as well as a ton of other trauma conferences throughout the year. There definitely isn't a shortage in education opportunities.

[SquishyRN, BSN, RN]

For staff in general, we have as other PPs have mentioned, annual competencies, certification renewals, optional monthly staff meetings where a doctor in a specialized field will hold a 1 hr class on varying topics, and conferences throughout the year.

For new nurses, in addition to the above, informal training is provided sporadically by senior floor staff to junior floor staff in the form of short teaching sessions during shift down times. Lessons could include reviewing principles and interventions for various cases such as DKA, ICP, etc, or hands on practice with equipment such as setting up a level one infuser or accessing port-a-caths. This, however, is only done on night shift because 1) there's more down time on night shift and 2) the new nurses are predominantly on night shift. The few new nurses on dayshift definitely miss out. Also, this approach allows nurses to become more masterful in their knowledge and practice because it's the only a little bit more senior staff that teach the more junior staff. It's a learn by teaching approach. For example 2-3 year nurses teach more basic principles to the fresh off residency nurses, while 3-5 year nurses teach a little more advanced principles to the 2-3 year nurses, and 8+ year nurses watch over these sessions to make sure everything being taught is correct. At any given point, most nurses are both a learner and teacher.

[Guest219794]

Essentially very little.

Bi-annual skills fairs that occasionally have something helpful in actual practice.

And, a bunch of worthless computer garbage that is of no value to actual nurses, but maybe helps the hospital defend itself in liability suits. I suppose it's possible that some cubicle dweller somewhere thinks the "training" has value, but in reality, not so much.