Driving the Nursing Profession Forward with Continuous Professional Development

A challenging few years.

The last few years have been especially challenging for the nursing profession. We fought a virus that wreaked havoc on our patients, families, and on ourselves. We struggled with equity, diversity, and inclusion issues and we had to adjust how we educate nursing students, moving from in-person to hybrid and online models. Faced with inadequate numbers of competent staff, we developed innovative workforce and care models while focusing on fostering resiliency.

Through it all we recognized the need to acquire new knowledge and skills through continuing professional development to keep up with the demands of the evolving health care paradigm.

‘Every day we learned something new.’

Investment in professional development is essential so that we are prepared to care for our patients and ready to help shape and lead the future of health care. Every day during the pandemic we learned something new about caring for patients with COVID-19. Learning new skills, investing in new knowledge and education, challenging ourselves to think differently about situations, and being mindful can all help propel and focus our nursing journey. […]

2022-05-16T10:08:47-04:00May 16th, 2022|career, Nursing, nursing career|0 Comments

AJN’s October Issue: Breast Cancer, Celiac Disease, the Fall Elections, More

AJN’s October issue is now available on our Web site. Here’s a selection of what not to miss, including two continuing education (CE) articles, which you can access for free.

All women who inherit a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation have a significantly increased risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer or both. This month’s original research article, “Being Young, Female, and BRCA Positive,” explores the psychosocial consequences in young women who test positive for one of these mutations—especially where it concerns marriage and childbearing. This CE article is open access and can earn you 2.1 CE credits.

Diagnosis of celiac disease in adults is often missed or delayed because clinicians often consider it to be a childhood disease. “Celiac Disease: A Medical Puzzle,” provides an overview of this widely underrecognized disease, outlines the pathophysiology and the four types of celiac disease, addresses diagnosis and disease management, and offers illustrative stories in the interest of raising nurses’ awareness of the disease. This CE article is open access and can earn you 2.1 CE credits. For more information, listen to a podcast with the authors.

Being unaware of the realities of licensure can damage a nurse’s career, even permanently. “Common Misconceptions About Professional Licensure” is part one of a three-part series that will discuss nursing disciplinary actions and provides tips for maintaining one’s license in good standing. For more, listen to a podcast with the author, […]

2016-11-21T13:09:11-05:00October 1st, 2012|Nursing|0 Comments

Revamping CE

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN interim editor-in-chief

I finally got to the bottom of my inbox. There I found a transcript of a Webcast I had listened to back in December. I had forgotten about it and am amazed that there wasn’t more buzz around it because there’s a call for a drastic overhaul of continuing education for health professionals.

 

On December 4, the Institute of Medicine released a report, Redesigning CE in the Health Professions, which is the result of consensus recommendations by (what else?) a group of experts.

The experts were harsh in their criticisms, claiming that there are “major flaws in the way CE is conducted, financed, regulated and evaluated.” They also noted conflicts of interest and varying regulations from state to state, and pointed out that the scientific basis of CE is underdeveloped and lacks an interdisciplinary format.

You can read the full report online—but briefly, it calls for a federal “blue ribbon panel” to develop an interprofessional, independent Continuing Professional Development Institute to provide oversight to ensure reforms, new processes and accountability. 

Changes are coming . . . and it’s about time.

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2016-11-21T13:19:12-05:00February 22nd, 2010|Nursing|0 Comments
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