When choosing emergency medicine continuing education courses, you may want to consider both your professional needs as well as whether the courses will be approved by your employer or the professional or licensing body that requires you to complete continuing education. Depending on your professional goals as well as the needs of the populations that you serve, you may wish to choose emergency medicine continuing education programs that focus on the topics that you need to learn more about or in which you wish to achieve greater proficiency. If you are undertaking continuing education because your employer requires it or because you need to renew your license to practice, you should ensure that any courses that you take actually qualify as continuing education hours for that purpose. Finally, it is a good idea to look for classes that are both conveniently scheduled and affordable.
Emergency medicine continuing education offers you the opportunity to expand your knowledge and to improve the care that you give to your patients. When looking over a list of available classes, you may wish to focus on classes that can help you address issues that you often encounter in your practice. For example, if you live in an area where many people enter the emergency room because of a drug overdose, you may wish to take courses in dealing with drug users. Your employer may also ask you to take specific courses if it observes that there are areas in which you need improvement in skill or knowledge or because its records show that hospital patients are in need of specific types of expertise.
In many places, continuing education programs are laxly regulated. This can make it difficult for individuals to assess the quality of emergency medicine continuing education classes. As such, some organizations will only recognize the completion of certain courses or courses that are offered by certain education providers. Before enrolling in a course, be sure to ask the organization that requires you to complete continuing education about the approval status of the course or courses that you wish to take.
It can be difficult to fit emergency medicine continuing education classes in your busy work schedule, so you may wish to find a course that is taught online or at a professional convention that you were planning on attending. Both these options can reduce the inconvenience of completing your required continuing education hours. If your employer does not reimburse you for these classes, you should also compare the prices charged by different continuing education providers, as you may find that courses on similar topics can vary widely in cost.