Maximize Your CME Budget with Affordable Continuing Education

Nurse practitioners renew their board certification every 5 years and require about 100 continuing education hours including 25 hours in the area of pharmacology.

Physician assistants / associates renew their board certification every 2 years and require about 100 continuing education hours including at least 50 Category 1 hours.

$18 Per Hour

The average cost per continuing education hour is $18. That means that every board certification cycle costs the clinician (or their employer) around $1,800 with the exception of some free hours here and there. On average, clinicians are allowed anywhere from $1,200 to $2,000 each year by their employers for continuing education. These continuing education dollars are a major perk and can translate into greater marketability, skill enhancement, and patient outcomes for the clinician.

How we spend those continuing education dollars is important over the longitude of our careers. And, some continuing education companies want all of our money while simultaneously offering very little in return.

Continuing Education on the Cheap

One of the cheapest continuing education services available is UpToDate, offering almost unlimited continuing education hours for around $500 per year. With UpToDate, the clinician not only has access to the most (pardon the pun) up-to-date, evidence-based articles on essentially all of medical practice, but also:

• • Interactive pathways — an easy interactive navigation of critical, complex decision points based on patient co-morbidities and presentation.
  • Lab interpretation monographs — decision trees to help you understand abnormal results for high-volume tests and determine appropriate next steps based on individual patient needs.
  • Unique search features — streamlined capabilities with options to search in multiple languages as well as graphics. This allows you to search tens of thousands of pictures, charts, movies, illustrations and more – all without ever leaving UpToDate.
  • Drugs & drug interactions — quickly check for possible drug-to-drug and drug-to-herb interactions at no additional cost with select medication monographs and interactive tools from the drug reference, UpToDate® Lexidrug™.
  • Mobile app — access UpToDate clinical decision support on the go from any mobile browser or the award-winning UpToDate mobile app, available for most leading devices.

Hands-on Intervention Continuing Education / Training

While UpToDate will bring you (again, pardon the pun) up-to-date on essentially any topic of practice you might be wondering about, there is very little on hands-on intervention training.

That’s where we come into the picture.

There are a few “bread and butter” skills that every clinician should master:

• • Suturing
  • Incision and Drainage
  • Point-of-care Ultrasound Evaluation of Soft Tissue Disorders
  • Skin Biopsy
  • Nerve Blocks (including dental, migraine, orthopedic, and laceration)
  • Arthrocentesis

Mastering these hands-on interventions can provide your patient’s with immediate pain relief, wound repair, orthopedic evaluation, soft tissue evaluation, potential earlier cancer diagnosis, relief from abscesses, enhanced cosmetic outcomes from lacerations… the list goes on.

We’ve taken these skills (and many more topics) and created high-yield content to engage and teach each of them to you in a fun and memorable way.

We’ve also decided that $18 per hour is too much and slashed that cost to about $9 per continuing education hour.

The WhiteCoat Course Package

The WhiteCoat Course Package is the ultimate addition to UpToDate and other didactic continuing education programs you might already have access to. With the WhiteCoat Package, you get:

• • 51 Continuing Education hours – Accredited by the AAPA, ANCC, and the AANP.
  • 25 Pharmacology Hours – Included in the 51 total continuing education hours, this meets the requirement for most states and both licensing boards for pharmacology hours for an entire 5 year cycle.
  • Advanced Suture Course – Nearly 40 learning modules including 13 laceration closure techniques, the A.C.E. F.A.S.T. Closure method, 10 case studies, and downloadable course audio and video lectures.
  • The Skin Course – Our top-selling dermatology course teaches over 80 dermatology topics with a full-color course workbook and downloadable course audio and video lectures.
  • Joints, Points, and Blocks – Learn arthrocentesis, trigger point injections, and an array of nerve block techniques with a 3D virtual cadaver to assist.
  • The WhiteCoat Suture Manual – The ultimate pocket suturing guide with concise descriptions of techniques, indications for consultation, antibiotic and tetanus guidelines, and illustrations by medical illustrator Noelle J. Graham.
  • Deluxe Practice Kit – Contains laceration tray, 5 sutures, skin stapler, skin staple remover. Does NOT contain practice pad as we recommends against using ballistic gel practice pads in greater favor of skin-on chicken thighs, oranges, bananas.
  • Point-of-Care Ultrasound Training Module
  • Skin Biopsy Training Module

The entire course pack is asynchronous – you can work on it whenever and wherever you want. And, your access to the course material never expires.