Continuing Education for Pharmacists: Keeping Up with New Advancements
Continuing education is critically important in the healthcare field where innovations change the entire industry on a regular basis. This is especially important in the world of pharmaceuticals, where new drugs receive approval frequently from the FDA and the use of medications already on the market may change or be subject to different prescribing or usage guidance.
Pharmacy education requirements govern not only your future ability to maintain your license but also enable you to be effective in your field. Understanding, navigating and satisfying those requirements for pharmacy CE credits also ensure your future career opportunities are as broad as possible.
Learn more about pharmacy education requirements before you apply for pharmacy jobs through AMN Healthcare.
Understanding Pharmacy Education Requirements
Continuing education requirements for pharmacists are state-dependent and can be quite stringent to ensure professionals who dispense medications are as knowledgeable as possible to protect patient safety. Ohio, in particular, requires 60 hours of CE credits during every three year cycle. Buckeye State practitioner Nicole Baznik, PharmD, first became a pharmacist just five years ago, but makes a special note of how much of what she learned during her schooling has already changed or become outdated. Ensuring she remains well-informed on pharmaceutical topics and advances enables her work every day with a Davies Drugs pharmacy in Canton, Ohio.
Continuing education, she says, “helps me stay up to date with the most current recommendations for how patients should be treated for a variety of disease states and makes me aware of innovative new therapies that didn't exist when I was in school.” She recommends looking for education solutions that offer a wide variety of topics, user-friendly websites and applications, and recordkeeping systems that ensure pharmacists maintain compliance in the states where they're licensed.
Navigating Pharmacy Education Requirements
Navigating continuing education requirements can seem tricky, since different states have vastly different requirements. A survey of the MedScape database reveals that a majority of states require anywhere between 10 and 60 continuing education units (hours) per each one-, two- or three-year cycle.
Some states add additional requirements in courses about medication error prevention, medical legal issues, technology and management subjects and immunization topics. In addition, while most states allow online learning to satisfy the CEUs pharmacists have to earn each year to maintain their license, some states do require in-person hours to be earned. That can lead to costly fees through conference attendance or class registrations.
However, when you work with AMN Healthcare, you can have access to clinicians available in many different locations to earn in-person hours while also learning about new technologies in a more hands-on environment.
Satisfying Pharmacy Education Requirements
AMN Healthcare not only offers opportunities you can pursue to advance your career throughout the country but also provides a full catalog of continuing education opportunities that practitioners can take advantage of to remain at the top of their career and maintain licensing standards.
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