Should Continuing Education for Nurses be mandatory in all states?

Wishinonastar, BSN · Aug 8, 2008

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.

elkpark · Aug 8, 2008

I agree completely with llg (as usual! (Hey there, girlfriend!))

I remember many decades ago, when I was in high school (long before I ever thought about going into healthcare), my home state implemented a rule requiring a specific number of CMEs annually for physicians to maintain licensure. My father, a physician, disagreed strongly with the idea and I remember asking him why (since it seemed like a pretty simple concept to me -- more education = better doctors, right??)

My dad said that the problem with this was that it wouldn't really accomplish anything. The physicians who were interested in and committed to remaining current in their fields and learning new material were already doing plenty of continuing education and would continue to do so whether they were required to or not. The physicians who weren't interested and only wanted to do the minimum to get by would find some way to meet the requirement that required the least effort possible on their parts, and they would still not stay current or grow in their practices. You can't make people be interested in that sort of thing if they're not.

I filed that conversation away in the back of my head and didn't think about it again for many years. Then, several years ago, I moved from my home state (which did not require annual CEUs for RNs) to another state. The new state did require annual CEUs, so I recalled my father's comments and was interested in seeing how this worked in the new state. Sure enough, just as my father had said, those of us who were active and interested in continuing to develop our practices did more continuing education than what was required. For the others, all the hospitals had set up programs where they offered a one-hour inservice each month (coincidentally, the exact number of hours required for license renewal every two years). Most all the nurses at "my" hospital went to the free monthly inservices each month (while they were at work anyway, so they even got paid for the hour they sat there :)), regardless of whether the topic was related to their specific area of practice, and, on the occasions I attended the inservices (or presented them -- doing occasional staff inservices was part of my job), I often observed many of them talking with friends or reading a magazine during the presentation -- obviously not even pretending to be paying attention to the content. But, hey! -- they got the certificate for the hour CEU, and that's all that mattered ... SO, those of us who were interested in our own professional development did more than was required, and those who weren't interested were enabled to meet the "letter" of the requirement, at no expense and minimal/no effort, without coming close to meeting the "spirit" of the requirement.

I've since returned to my home state and my state has now implemented a continuing ed requirement. IMHO, the BON has done a better job than many other states; instead of just requiring a certain number of hours per year, you are required to develop a professional development plan that relates to your specific specialty, and there are several different ways you can meet the requirement besides simply attending CEU presentations. I think that's a lot better than just requiring an arbitrary # of random CEU hours, but I'm still dubious about the entire concept -- "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."

missjennmb · Aug 8, 2008

I think I may have spoken out of turn (again!) :) Its obvious that I am not as well versed in this issue as I had thought. YES I think that nurses should continue to educate themselves forever in their career. No, I do not think that they should be responsible for paying for it, unless they are doing some sort of contract work where there is no employer "responsible" for them.

My husband is a Software Developer/DBA (database something or other) and he makes around what an RN would make, if they'd been around for awhile. He is always continuing to learn and advance his knowledge in his field. His company (govt in his case) pays for it, and even brings in the people necessary to get him and his coworkers trained in pretty much anything and everything they could possibly use to stay up to date with technology. My husband's job is important, don't get me wrong. He writes software to manage inmate information in the county jail, things related to EMS and the 911 center, etc, but how is that any more important than nursing? Why should his employer take the responsibility for educating him (on company time as well) and medical staff not?

If he has to take a college class, not only do they pay for it, but they set up an account that he can charge his books to, pay for the class, and pay for any certifications at the end (technically I think they reimburse for the cert test once you have passed it). I think they may even pay his mileage to the college from his office and back.

I just assumed that this would be the case for nurses, and I have to admit that I find it sad that is not the case. I don't expect them to hand me my PhD on a silver plate, but i would definitely expect them to train me on the latest/greatest/newest equipment, as well as refresher courses on all of the basic skills... and customized to the needs of each department individually.

i.e. it may be fine to have a 10 minute power point presentation on age appropriate care for the secretary in the auxillary department, who just needs a rudimentary understanding, but I would expect a LOT more indepth of a class for those providing hands on care to varying age groups.

Brian, ASN, RN · Aug 8, 2008

I posted clarification in the first post, sorry for not being clearer

Clarification: CEUs, ie. some states require 24-30 hours of continuing education units every 2 years to maintain their license.

cocutza · Aug 8, 2008

Sorry cxg174!

I'm from Canada and I'm speaking French as second language .Englesh is my 3-th language.I don't know what are the new regulation in PA and the new CEU requirements in US. Do you whant to explain to me??

I,m interested because one day...I whant to work in Arizona. I hate the longs winters.

Thanks!!!! :nurse:

cocutza · Aug 8, 2008

OK . Thanks!!!! I have my response now.

JokeNurse · Aug 9, 2008

Je pense que plus d'Américains doit apprendre à parler d'autres langues! (I think more Americans should learn other languages)....but that's another thread, isn't it?!

skrnypa · Aug 9, 2008

I personally enjoy education and think it is very beneficial and essential to having a well-rounded, skilled and professional workforce. (I also have a diploma in nursing, 2 Bachelors degrees- one in Nursing, the other in Psychology/Sociology, a Certificate in Train the Trainer, and a Masters degree in Adult Education.) Having said that, I voted NO because "mandating" Continuing Education will not assure that nurses are exposed to quality, adult-learner oriented programs on topics that are useful, pertinent, interesting and relevent.

I am due to be scheduled for mandatory "Ethics" training at my place of employment. I am DREADING it because it will consist of sitting by myself for 8 hours in a conference room for my "training" day, reading a "book" (created by my employer) on Ethics. [i feel a nap coming on already.]

3 months ago I was sent to a half-day, mandatory seminar on "Communication Skills". I have led Communication Skills workshops and find them irreplacable for helping individuals develop much-needed skills and increase their self-awareness. The "mandatory" seminar, (again- created by the employer and presented by employer-certified trainers), consisted of 2 and 1/2 hours of sitting there waiting to get started while the participants that had worked together for years told stories and bantered back and forth and 1 and 1/2 hours of the presenter speed-reading a power point while telling us all "I'm sorry you had to sit through this, it's stupid".

Mandatory Continuing Ed- No, thank you. I'll seek out appropriate experiences on my own.

skrnypa · Aug 9, 2008

I hope you re-think letting the certification go-

try the on-line ceu's- like with MedScape.

suni, BSN, RN · Aug 9, 2008

I do believe they should be mandatory however I also think that half of them should have to be obtained in your speciality area. I also think that Pa has been lax with communicating exactly is required, 30 hours of continuing ed but are they contact hours or CEU's, no information has been sent although license renewals are stating that we must have the 30 hours to renew in 2010.

For retirees, I think 15 is reasonable since most are on a fixed income. There is a nursing shortage as we all know and taking retirees out of the working pull when they help with vaccine clinics, Red Cross drives etc. is going to create another issue.

It is unfortunate that there are people who will just copy answers from another and bet contact hours that way, if I am paying for them I want to gain the knowledge of the article or semianr I am attending.

rnedu03 · Aug 9, 2008

Hello,

I think the term "mandatory" is what gives a negative feeling to it. It would really be ideal if each individual nurse would just seek out his/her own learning desires appropriate with the nursing specialty he/she practices including medical/surgical nursing. Unfortunately, the only way the public we serve could understand how "good" we nurses are, is through proven educational attainment and how we actually perform those duties and responsibilities required of us as professionals. Obviously, not much is free nowadays.... We do pay for our education.....

murphybear · Aug 10, 2008

It should never be manadated as there is too much big business out there to make money off it. Professional responsibility yes, but the concept of MANDATORY gives me the shivers.