For all health professionals, expanding and deepening clinical skills is a career-long necessity in order to stay up to date as new medical knowledge emerges. For this reason, healthcare professionals are required to earn a certain number of Continuing Education Units (CEUs) every year. Face-to-face seminars, workshops, and meetings have been the default approach used to enhance expertise, particularly in the physical therapy realm. But did you know that there are lots of online resources available so you can grow your clinical skills and benefit your practice anywhere, anytime— regardless of stay-at-home mandates or the need to juggle a family, a career, and a personal life all at once?
Let’s take a look at the top resources for continuing education for health professionals that you can join for FREE or low-cost, which makes it easier than ever to catch up on your continuing education.
Where Can I Earn CEUs Online?
No matter whether you are quarantined or simply interested in upgrading your clinical skills, it’s worth taking stock of your goals in order to find the right classes for your CEUs.
Ask yourself: Are there areas you’ve longed to focus on? Improvements you’ve wished to make? Expertise you’ve wanted to grow?
Once you understand what you need, you can find the right program or training that will best enable you to return to practice or grow your practice with greater skills and confidence, enhance patient results, and propel your income forward, too.
To start, you on the right path, let’s take a look at these 6 websites that deliver cost-effective, even complimentary, courses tailored to health professinals.
1) The American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA) offers free and low-cost massage therapy training with CE credits.
Free topics include:
- self-care
- business and massage marketing
- ethics
- education
- research including how massage therapist skills can positively contribute to the treatment of anxiety, arthritic pain, chronic pain for breast cancer patients, and low back pain
The AMTA’s low-cost courses include:
- sports massage
- technique protocols
- massage for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and carpal tunnel syndrome
You can view their online programs here.
2) Acupuncture Continuing Education (ACE) offers a variety of programs that accrue formal CEU points.
Courses include:
- ethics and safety
- legal regulations and diet
- treating various conditions with acupuncture
ACE provides the option to buy points packages to secure extra points at no cost. You can sign up for their newsletter to receive notifications about free acupuncture CEUs.
3) Nurses.com is a resource wellspring that allows you to gain new practical skills, expand your knowledge, and navigate the requirement for CEU credits from home. Each course is peer-reviewed by fellow nurses, making it particularly appealing to those who are seeking advanced credibility. The annual fee of $49.95 provides access to over 700 continuing professional development courses and a 50% discount on premium choices.
You can view their CE courses here.
4) If you are a nurse, there is also a new-to-market site called Incredible Health. The site states they are “… a first-of-its-kind platform offering free continuing education for nurses.” With over 100 American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) accredited courses ranging from acute myocardial infarction to Workers Compensation, this resource aims to enhance clinical skills, expand your knowledge base, provide access to areas of interest, and aid compliance.
5) FreeCME is a medically focused ongoing education portal best suited to doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals. While its highlighted specialties include asthma and allergies, cardiology, hematology and oncology, neurology, primary care, and psychiatric medicine; other subject matters are covered as well like pain management, nutrition, and sleep. As their names suggest, the courses are FREE.
You can search their catalog here.
6) Remarkably, Harvard University also offers free and low-cost online courses, including several holistic health courses. Some complimentary programs offer an inexpensive verified certificate upgrade. Check with your professional board to see if CEUs are applicable.
You can view their health and medicine course catalog online.
Benefitting Your Practice in Uncertain Times
These uncertain times may have caused interruptions in your personal and professional life, but this can also be seen as an opportunity. Now is a perfect time to advance your training and education without even needing to leave your home. Not only can the extra education help you put your best foot forward when you return to work or seek new opportunities, but it is also a great way to passively build your network. After all, professional partnerships often start in the classroom.
The minimum requirement for formal continuing education units depends on your profession and your state. However, there is no reason to limit your scholarship to base necessity only; particularly when there are free and low-cost resources available. By combining clinical skills training with new business and marketing acumen, you’ll be ready to take your practice to the next level.
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