Should Continuing Education for Nurses be mandatory in all states?

YES

Continuing education for nurses should be mandatory.

I am a charge nurse in a high care aged care facility that looks after 80 residents. Under the contract that I signed I have to attend six educational internal or external nursing educational services per year.

Even if they are to update your nursing skills, in wound management, controlling seizure's, cardiac arrest, documentation or medication management.

I have been to several seminar's on several topics which I found interesting, and you always learn something new as time goes on. They always come up with some new dressing in wound management and it does feel good to be up to date with all the latest information.

Yes absolutely.

Yes it should, there is constant change in health care and nurses skills and knowledge should reflect this.

I think this is hugely important in any field, but even more so in nursing. I would hope that they would focus on things that are necessary but perhaps not practiced every day, like in the other thread, where they had mentioned peds classes for ER nurses, so that we can always stay sharp on our skills, or else focus on demonstrating new/different ways to do things that may make quality of care better.

I do agree that CEU's should be required of us nurses who consider ourselves professionals. We've got to be self-motivated in learning so we will not be behind the times.... we'll gain more respect from other health care colleagues we work with.

:up:rnedu03

In PA we recently started having a requirement for 30 CEUs every two years. It is not too bad, since we already go to tons of inservices every year anyway. However, being a school nurse I am expected to get 35 CEUs a year, or 180 every five years. I have no idea how I can get that many. They are expensive and I would have to spend so much time going to classes that I doubt I can do it. I will probably drop my school nurse certificate after my five years are up. What a shame, to work so hard to get something and not be able to keep it. The job I am in is low paying- at a Vo-Tech school, so I already have to work a second job. I think this requirement is excessive.

I am also a school nurse in Pennsylvania. I don't feel that the 180 CE credits every 5 years is too much, particularly because you can fulfull that by taking 2 college courses (which are reimbursed 75% if in a grad program in our district pending getting a B or better). The only problem with school nursing is sometimes we are forced to attend in services that are tailored for teachers. I sat in an in service for a full day which dealt with strategies for teaching reading to fourth graders; not that I don't have an appreciation for teachers, but it was a waste of my time. In school nursing, it's really crucial to keep up to date with a variety of health topics because we aren't immersed in a medical environment. School nursing has changed quite a bit in the last 20 years and kids are coming to school with more complicated health problems and other issues. Students, staff, and parents look to us to provide them with accurate information and continuing education is obviously a necessity to me.

I am not really sure what this poll is asking, are we talking about CEUs or continuing degree education and courses related to certifications specilties.

Yes and No

If we are talking about CEU YES. Most if not all states licenses have continued education attached to them.

You need to be held responsible for your license and go were the industry wants you to go. Holistic care and medical advancements are constantly changing to increase successful treatments. Ask yourself if you want to have the nurse that doesn't care about new advanced treatments to be the one taking care of you.

If we are talking about continuing educations as in certificates, BSN, MSN... than NO. That is a personal choice.

Not everyone has the same goals as far as nursing. As far as personal growth I think you should continue to advance yourself in your career as far as you can but if it is not realistic for you to commit the time or energy because of life little interferences than do what you can.

You are very lucky if you can get tuition reimbursement in your school, but I am drowning in student loan debt, and can't afford more classes to get the 180 CEU requirement. I agree the inservices available to us are geared to teachers which makes it almost a waste of time. The board should accept more of a variety instead of having to have everything through only approved providers. Then we could take interesting nursing courses.

In my opinion, working like a nurse, is all-important being up date. You are working with a human been. Error is not accepted. I have 30 years experiance like a RN and I learn all the time the new thinks. I whant to learn by pleasure, in my free time ,but not be forced to drop out from my job for study. By By:up:

I agree, and I do have a master's though not in nursing. This new regulation in PA is going to exacerbate our shortage of nurses. At the hospital where I work in my second job we have a lot of retirees who supplement our staff. Many are going to drop their licenses now because of the new CEU requirements. I have never worked in any area of nursing where the staff did not go to inservices on a regular basis anyway.