CDC Laboratory Training

CDC TRAIN (www.cdc.train.org) is CDC’s external learning management system (LMS) — a learning resource for public health professionals and an affiliate of the Public Health Foundation (www.phf.org). CDC TRAIN is available to learners across the public health community including public health practitioners, healthcare professionals, laboratorians, epidemiologists, veterinarians, first responders, educators, and students. Through TRAIN, you can register for live and on-demand courses, create learning plans, apply and receive a variety of Continuing Education credits, sign up for notifications of new courses, and view archived seminars and live events here at CDC.

When at all possible, we will attempt to answer any technical questions about issues related to registering for courses on TRAIN, locating certificates of completion, and issues with pre-tests, post-tests, and evaluations on that system, however sometimes we may be forced to have you contact the CDC TRAIN administrators directly at train@cdc.gov.

Go to CDC TRAIN (http://cdc.train.org), and click on- Create Account. CDC TRAIN accounts are free of charge. Next, in TRAIN policies, click in the box marked “I agree to these TRAIN policies”,  and click Next to continue. There are several required fields marked with a red asterisk that must be completed.  You MUST check the box ”I would like to receive emails from TRAIN”, in order to receive course updates, announcements of new CDC Laboratory Training courses, confirmation email and other system emails from TRAIN. We promise to only email you when it’s important (this includes password reset emails!) At the “Group Selection” page, select “CDC Portal” and click on “Select Groups” and “Select Community of Practice” will appear. Click on “Lab Training” from the drop down boxes that appear, and click “Submit” to close the window. Click Next to continue to your  “Professional Roles”. By filling these out, the system will be able to better delivered targeted courses to you. Continue through the registration process, and you will be shown the “Account Created” message. At that point, you will receive a confirmation email from TRAIN. If you don’t receive one, please check your junk/spam email folders. You must open the email and click or paste link that is contained in the email to confirm and activate your account. Once your account is created, you can log in and add in professional licenses to your profile. This is important because for many certificates of completion, your license number will be included in that sheet. To do that, log in to train and click on “My Account” in the upper right corner of the screen. Next, click on “Licenses” and next to “Do you have license number?”, click on ”Yes”,  and type in your license number, and then click Save and Back.

To register (or pre-register) for a live or online event, login to your CDC TRAIN account at www.cdc.train.org and type in the keyword, course name,  or course ID into search box located on the upper right side of the screen. On the “Course Search” results page, courses fitting your keyword, title, or ID are displayed. Click on course title to view the course details, then click on the “Registration” tab, select what type of credits you want to apply for (of offered) and then click on “Launch” to open the course. You may be required to take a pre-test before the course opens.

CDC Laboratory Training releases numerous eLearning, live hands-on, and live webinar events every month. By adding CDC Laboratory Training to your TRAIN account as a provider will allow us to email you about new and upcoming events or courses. It will allow us to better serve the laboratory community by being able to see who is interested in our courses, and the custom-tailor our offerings for those members. To add CDC Laboratory Training to your TRAIN account as a provider, goto CDC TRAIN at www.cdc.train.org and login to your TRAIN account. In the upper-right corner, click on “My Account.” When your account information loads up, click on the “Groups” tab that is displayed along the top. In the list of available groups shown, next to “CDC Portal” click on “Select Groups”.  A popup window will appear with a dropdown menu. In that dropdown menu, select “Laboratory Training” and at the bottom of the window, click on “Save and Back”. You will now be able to see all of the courses that CDC Laboratory Training has to offer, as well as you will be notified whenever new courses are posted by CDC Laboratory Training on TRAIN.

In order to participate in a live webinar from CDC, you will need a computer with a broadband internet connection. Be aware that if you are using a Wi-Fi connection, you may experience buffering and display issues depending on your Wi-Fi strength and connection speed. You will also need headphones or computer speakers. We do not offer a call-in number for our live online events. If during the event, you have a question for the presenter or instructor, you will be able at any time to type that question in via the chat room functionality.

Our live workshops are normally held at the main CDC campus at 1600 Clifton Road Atlanta, GA 30329-4027. There are some live workshops that take place around the Continental US.

These live workshops are open to local, state, national, and international laboratorians who meet certain criteria. When registering for a live workshop, you will be prompted to provide credentials, as well as take a pre-test to gauge if this live workshop is appropriate for you. After registration closes, the selected students will be notified via email, and the process will continue.

The CDC Laboratory Training staff is a mix of active laboratorians with a variety of backgrounds, from clinical laboratory workers, to specialists in parasitology and rare diseases. These specialists, together with the instructor(s) review every application to determine the most qualified candidates for inclusion in our live on-site courses.

The syllabus for our live workshops change, depending on the content, the process, and the instructor(s), however our live workshops normally have a lecture portion in a lecture room, and a hands-on laboratory portion that takes place in one of our BSL 1,2, or 3 training labs. Students will receive hands-on experience with familiar laboratory equipment such as pipettes, BSC’s (BioSafety Cabinets), PCR machines, and more. It all depends on the course and the instructor.

While CDC Laboratory Training does not design and create training material directly for individuals, we would love to hear your ideas and take them to the subject matter experts involved. Please fill out the contact form on the Contact Us page.

A Quick Introduction to TRAIN. How to use it and how to register for free.

How to Register on TRAIN [PDF – 220K]

Add CDC Lab Training to an Existing TRAIN Account. Quick, Easy and FREE!

How to add CDC as a provider [PDF – 147K]

How to add CDC as a TRAIN Course Provider