Courses, courses and more courses

I feel like I'm in school again! Right now I'm working on three courses for work. I'm updating my Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) next Friday. You might remember my posts in early September describing my own personal heart attacks trying to prepare for that course. Normally, I wouldn't have to re-certify until Sept 2008 but the Heart and Stroke Foundation has decided to come up with new guidelines for the course so I get to re-certify now rather than later. I know the H&S Foundation does great work but this wasn't one of their brighter ideas in my mind. I spent today at a workshop for the obstetric course I'm taking called Strategies for Teaching Obstetrics to Rural and Urban Caregivers (STORC). It is soooooo basic, nursing school knowledge of labor and delivery I was bored to tears today. I'm probably one of the most experienced nurses taking the course, there's 6 of us and 4 of them are new grads, and the questions they were asking.....I just had to shake my head. Oh well, it's a good review, I'm getting paid to take it and I get 4 'buddy' shifts on the labor and delivery unit at the Foothills to get some good experience. The third course that I just signed up for is the Emergency Nursing Pediatric Course (ENPC) and that doesn't happen until March but I picked up the 300 page text book today that I have to have read prior to the course starting. Whew! Lots of reading ahead of me but it's a great opportunity and all the courses are both paid for and I'm being paid to take them. Oh, and I learned today that I've been selected to take the advanced obstetric course (when I'm finished the basic one) called MORE OB (not sure what it stands for) and that course requires a 3 year committment although because we're a small facility we'll likely be done in 18 months. I'm going to be a super nurse by the time I'm finished!