With the New Year upon us and a fresh start ahead many of us make our New Year resolutions. Lose weight, have a better attitude, get a new job etc. The best part is that there really does not have to be a limit to number of resolutions you make.

As an EMS professional you have a unique opportunity to make one resolution that you can easily keep and it may even lead you to being motivated to keep all the other more difficult ones. The one that is EMS related and that can be done right now is your continuing education.

These days keeping up with your continuing education is easier than ever. In addition to courses at your agency or local educational institute, you also have online options and magazine CEU options as well. Many of these are free and simply require the time on your part to take the hour or so and complete them.

The bigger commitment to this though is to not only take advantage of all the accredited CE opportunities but also those that may not accredited. There are many available courses available online and off that may not be accredited but offer extremely valuable content.

EMS Boot Camp is one that is not an accredited educational option but does offer some of the most valuable live and recorded EMS education available. Live sessions are free and recorded sessions come with a small fee but also allow you to submit the course outline to your medical director for CE approval at your agency.

Some other online resources are RapidCE.com and Train.org which offer accredited online CE at both free and paid levels.

The EMS Professional also offers annual accredited CE opportunities through it’s partnership with Medic-CE.

You should also make this resolution with the goal of taking courses that:

Meet or exceed your state requirements
Are of interest to you as a provider
Will genuinely enhance your knowledge or patient care skills
Go beyond  the minimum credits you need each year

On the last note, don’t just stop taking classes once you meet your credit count for the year. Take as many classes as you can. Don’t think of classes over your required need as a waste of time or something that is not needed. I think you will find that with every class you take you will take away something new and find yourself applying it in your day to day actions.

So, try and set your schedule this year so you can take advantage of upcoming CE classes. Putting it in your mind that you will make the most of the many opportunities. Then when next year rolls around you will find yourself not only meeting your CE requirements without that last minute rush, but also richer in your EMS knowledge base. Which in the end will make you a better EMS professional. Being better at what we do is all of our first New Years resolution anyway.