Athletic Trainer CEU Reporting: An Educational Opportunity to Prepare for 2020

It’s crunch time for athletic trainers across the country—BOC CEUs are due at the end of December! Even if you’ve waited and need to squeeze in your courses to make the deadline, now is the perfect time to find educational opportunities that will help you grow as a professional.

Prepare for Emerging Settings

For those of you who are working in emerging settings or populations, educational courses are available that pertain to your clinical work:

• If you work in a military or occupational setting, you might want to expand your knowledge of dynamic movement screening, prosthetic limb rehabilitation, or the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA).
• Work in the performing arts? Check out courses on current screenings specific to your patient population or learn to address dancer injuries common to Horton modern dance techniques.
• Athletic trainers who work in a physician or physical therapy practice may benefit from increasing their knowledge of prenatal fitness or lifestyle medicine.

The course “Non-Prescribing Clinicians: What Is Our Role in Helping Curb the Opioid Epidemic?” is highly timely and can help you better understand the Inter-Association Consensus Statement: The Management of Medications by the Sports Medicine Team. As athletic trainer opportunities and settings continue to expand, so must our knowledge specific to unique patient populations!

Boost Knowledge in Traditional Settings

Do you work in the more traditional sports setting?

• Check out how using a metronome can improve patient outcomes in “The Movement System: Advanced Running Assessment and Treatment” (1.5 EBP hours).
• Learn more about the recommendations presented in the recent “Evaluation, Management, and Outcomes of and Return-to-Play Criteria for Overhead Athletes with Superior Labral Anterior-Posterior Injuries” position statement in “Advanced Rehab for the Baseball Pitcher to Improve ROM & Strength” (1 EBP hour) or “Evidence-Based Examination of the Shoulder” (1.75 EBP hours).

Stay on Top of Current Recommendations

Additional EBP courses and webinars can bring you up to date on recent profession recommendations. My course, “Body Temperature Assessment for Exertional Heat Stroke” (2 EBP hours) will help you overcome obstacles at your clinical site regarding rectal temperature assessment. And be sure to register now for my upcoming webinar, “Efficient Implementation of Weight Charts to Determine Hydration Changes Across Sport Settings” (1 EBP hour) on effectively using weight charts to make individualized fluid replacement strategies easier based on the new “Fluid Replacement for the Physically Active” position statement.

You could also join another position statement author, Michele Boling, for “Effective Intervention Strategies for the Management of Patellofemoral Pain” (1 EBP hour) to help you implement the recommendations presented in the recent patellofemoral pain position statement.

Missed the live presentation of these webinars? No problem—just check MedBridge’s athletic trainer CE course library for the webinar recordings!

Advance the Profession

The BOC and CAATE are both part of a strategic alliance whose mission is to advance the athletic training profession by identifying and prioritizing current and future practices and initiatives worldwide. New competencies will be instituted in 2020 that place patient-centered care at the forefront, along with interprofessional practice, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, healthcare informatics, and professionalism. Even though these competencies affect the educational programs, they also give practicing clinicians a good idea of where they may need to grow professionally. Competencies include providing care across the lifespan, sexes, competition level, and now socioeconomic status. Now would be a great time to check out “The New Geriactive Patient” or “Introduction to Female and Male Pelvic Pain.”

The BOC lists the following as core professional content for ATs:

• Risk management and injury prevention
• Pathology of injuries and illnesses
• Orthopedic clinical examination and diagnosis
• Medical conditions and disabilities
• Acute care of injuries and illnesses
• Therapeutic modalities
• Conditioning
• Rehabilitative exercise and pharmacology
• Psychosocial intervention and referral
• Nutritional aspects of injuries and illnesses

Do you need to introduce yourself to or develop any of these knowledge topic areas in your professional setting? You can check out “Nutrition Management of Diabetes,” “The Female Athlete Triad,” or “Psychology of Injury.”

Still not sure where you need growth or development? Consider using the BOC’s Professional Development Needs Assessment (PDNA) to determine which educational opportunities you would like to explore. For example, it may guide you toward diversifying your rehabilitation toolkit with aquatic therapy courses.

Continuing education requirements are intended to promote continued competence, develop knowledge over time, and enrich professional skills. They allow ATs to remain on the cutting edge of our field and develop skills in new areas. As information is updated and research and patient trends change, it’s important for athletic trainers to stay abreast of such changes. The next two months are an exciting time for ATs to meet this challenge!