Advances in Continuing Education for Health Professionals

Are you a health care professional seeking continuing education credits for licensing or other professional reasons? Are you not sure what is out there for you, but know that you need something that is useful and accessible given your busy schedule?

Health care providers, from physicians and nurses to social workers and counselors, share a professional and legal commitment to continuous learning. Staying current with information and practices not only allows you to maintain their various licenses and certifications but also insures that you provide the standard of care necessary today. Fortunately there are now options to fit nearly every schedule and inclination.

In content and delivery method, the options have increased considerably over the last decade. While many service providers may elect to deepen or sharpen their knowledge and skills in their original areas of specialization, others use the continuing education requirement as an opportunity to widen their base of knowledge and tools. Many of these instructional avenues also lead towards certification, which can add to your ability to further serve your current patients or clients or lead you to new career paths.

Furthermore, in addition to the traditional venues of classroom instruction and conference workshops, the prevalence of continuing education via distance education on line has skyrocketed. What this means for you as the educational consumer is that courses are available on an amazingly wide variety of topics can by highly qualified instructors. These generally entail a lower overall cost, given the expense of travel and lodging, not to mention the cost of any cancellation of clients in order to attend courses in person.

Here are just some of the fields in which continuing education and certification is available for those who care for the bodies, minds, and spirits.

· Hypnotherapy

· Grief counseling

· Holistic and integrative health care

· Pastoral thanatology

· Stress management

· Meditation instructor

· Crisis intervention

· Spiritual counseling

· Health care life coach

· Case management

· Legal nurse consulting

· Forensic nursing

While some of these areas pertain only to particular professions (e.g., only nurses can do legal or forensic nursing), other areas such as stress management and grief counseling can be very relevant for providers across the spectrum. Regardless of the presenting symptoms or issues, almost anyone can benefit from a doctor, nurse, pastor, or counselor who can provide help with stress management, for example. Also, grief strikes us all eventually, and knowing what to expect and how to help can do much for those who look to you for compassion and guidance.

Some tracks are clearly oriented toward management issues, such as case management and legal nurse consulting, whereas others are more relevant to actual services, e.g., spiritual counseling and crisis intervention. Even meditation has been shown to have applications in both medical and psychological services.

In choosing continuing education courses, it is important to consider which focus will best meet your patients’ needs as well as those that may be required or advised by your current or future employer, if relevant. As you choose your educational provider, decide if you want an institution that can provide additional training and even certification, if desirable or necessary.

In a world with rapidly advancing technology and research, keeping up to date on a wide variety of issues that affect you and those you help can be a rewarding and exciting experience.

Four Proven Reasons Why You Need to Teach Meditation to Your Patients

As research continues to demonstrate the many benefits of meditation, health care professionals show increasing interest in being able to share this with their patients.

Physicians, nurses, psychologists, therapists, counselors, and social workers are discovering the positive impact that simple meditation practices can have for not only themselves but also their patients and clients. Courses and certification for meditation instruction are available from reputable institutions for those who wish to add this to their toolbox.

Based on Buddhist tenets, both mindfulness meditation and loving kindness meditation have been shown to have powerful effects in improving wellbeing. Here are just some of the many research findings that demonstrate how it can benefit for many health care patients.

1. Meditation increases positive emotions.

Various studies show reductions in stress and anxiety and a boost in positive emotions for both kinds of mediation. Loving-kindness meditation is especially recommended by Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, author of Positivity and an esteemed positivity psychology researcher. She found that practicing meditation four times a week for 20 minutes boosted feelings of hope, lessened stress, and greater resilience. Meditators even reported better sleep.

The Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, led by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, has trained over 18,000 people in a highly successful mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program. Participants find “greater balance, ease, and peace of mind,” reports the Center.

2. Meditation improves cognitive functioning.

More recent studies find that mindfulness meditation also leads to improvement in cognitive tasks. Those who were trained in mindfulness meditation showed increased focus and attention on challenging tests, for example.

3. Mediation can boost physical health.

While the actual mechanisms are not yet understood, research over the last quarter century has amassed enough evidence of health benefits for meditation to suggest it just might be “the magic bullet.” Benefits include the following: lowering of blood pressure by as much as 15 points, an average lowering of 30 points in cholesterol level in those with high cholesterol, less dependence on drugs, pain reduction, and even improvements in motor skill improvement and concentration.

4. Mediation can improve social relationships.

Various studies have shown that meditating enhances social relationships, perhaps because meditators feel calmer and more positive, attributes which can facilitate healthy relationships.

Are there any reasons NOT to meditate?

While in general meditation appears to be a boon for most people, the National Institutes of Health does offer a caution: “There have been rare reports that meditation could cause or worsen symptoms in people who have certain psychiatric problems, but this question has not been fully researched. People with physical limitations may not be able to participate in certain meditative practices involving physical movement. “

Given that meditation is easily available, economical, and effective, it is sure to become more widely used in both physical and mental health care venues. Health care providers who want to stay ahead of the curve should consider seeking quality training in meditation instruction to their clients. In doing so, it is likely that they will enjoy the many benefits themselves, so this is truly a win-win situation.