Nursing continuing education too expensive for most nurses

One of the things that fustrates me most about the nursing profession is how "UNAFFORDABLE" continuing education is. I get fustrated, all to often, to the point of wanting to quit.

If nursing is so important (no doubt in my mind the health care system would collapse without nurses) why do the powers that be make attending workshops and conferences so damned expensively out of reach for the majority of nurses.

Leadership conferences, annual CNA conferences hold valuable information about the profession and its' future but it costs a minimum of about $700.00 to attend.
You must then add on the costs of hotel and food.
Damned near impossibe for most nurses unless they're (ie no need to worry about anyone elses welfare than their own).

I just tore up the CNA AGM and Conference registration form for June 2006. Having bills and 3 kids needs to care for, my husband and I just can't afford to see me attend.

There can be no good reason for such costs except that the heads of professional bodies and those that assist in organizing such events have little if any vision or foresight. They must also have very little real insight into what grass roots (hands on care) nursing is like.

Nursing image=Nursing power

This was the title of an article I found in the Sacramento Bee online news paper. Originally published in June 2004, the article by Dr Patricia Raymond deduced that people took nurses more seriously when they dressed professionally and could easily be recognized from other health care personell.
The colour white was the answer and not scrubs.

I am apt to agree with the author that a good part of the reason we are not taken seriously, by most people, is a fault of our own doing.

What are your thoughts?

Anyone out there got nerve, and professionalism, enough to speak their mind?