Continuing Education (CE) Class Catalog

Course Description

Nurses and other health care workers face some of the highest rates of work-related injuries and illnesses of all occupations in the US. Frequently, nurses report experiencing aches and pains after their shifts. Most nurses experience low back pain during their career. More than 80 percent of nurses have experienced violence on the job in the past year. Chronic stress and moral distress are taking an extreme toll on nurses’ mental and physical health. These injuries, illnesses, aches, and pains are preventable—if employers prioritize the health and safety of nurses by having the right policies and measures in place.

This CE class will explore the sources of and the connections between the high rates of on-the-job injuries, illnesses, and pain experienced by nurses and the impacts on patient care. After identifying the causes, we will discuss the prevention measures that employers should put in place to protect nurses. Then, we will explore tools that nurses can use to effectively advocate for safer patient care conditions.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this class, participants should be able to:

• Describe major causes of injuries and illnesses to nurses.
• Discuss prevention measures needed to establish safe patient care conditions.

Instructors: Rocelyn de Leon-Minch and/or Jane Thomason

Course Details:

This class is being offered both in-person and virtually. Online, virtual classes will be four hours for 4 CEUs. In-person classes will be six hours for 6 CEUs.

For online classes: After registering, you will receive an invitation to the Zoom class via email. It is important that you respond to the invitation and register for the Zoom class prior to the day of the class.

CE courses are free to National Nurses United members. Classes are only offered to direct-care and staff RNs.

The hospital industry’s constant drive to cut costs poses a major threat to the continuity of care nurses provide for patients. Nowhere has this threat been more alarming than in recent attempts to splinter the nursing profession into an on-demand workforce. Promising flexibility and independence, tech startups and legislative proposals that aim to “gigify” nursing in fact gut the workplace protections that enable RNs to be effective patient advocates. This course will engage nurses in a discussion of the increasing predominance of so-called gig work in health care and provide the tools necessary to resist the dismantling of their profession.

Objectives:

• Explain why employment protections are fundamental to nurses’ ability to provide safe and effective care.
• Describe the historical precedents behind worker misclassification and how this perpetuates inequities in the health care workforce.
• Enumerate long-term measures that can be taken to address the RN staffing crisis while preserving the integrity of the profession.

Instructors: Lily Cain or KB Burnside-Oxendine

Course Details:

This will be a 2-hour online class via Zoom for 2 hours of continuing education credits. After registering, you will receive an invitation to the Zoom class via email. It is important that you respond to the invitation and register for the Zoom class prior to the day of the class.

CE courses are free to National Nurses United members. Classes are only offered to direct-care and staff RNs.

Course Description

This course will analyze how economic crises affect nurses, their patients, and communities. It will help nurses make sense of how current crises such as the continued economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic and inflation impact our health care system.

We will investigate how economic crises deepen existing racialized and gendered disparities in health outcomes, access, and coverage. We will also consider the ways in which financialization left both our health care system and economy massively underprepared for the Covid-19 pandemic at the expense of the most marginalized patients. We will conclude with an exploration of how nurses can utilize their collective power to lead in the fight for a future of economic and health justice.

Course Objectives:

• Explain how health care disparities and rising health care costs impact our economy.
• Identify how rising economic inequality has contributed to health care inequalities pertaining to health outcomes, access and coverage, especially for marginalized patients.
• Explore how nurses have used their collective voice to lead in times of economic crisis and advocate for an equitable health care system.

Instructor: Omid Mohamadi

Course Details:

This will be a 3-hour online class via Zoom for 3 hours of continuing education credits. Check back soon for in-person dates.

After registering, you will receive an invitation to the Zoom class via email. It is important that you respond to the invitation and register for the Zoom class prior to the day of the class.

CE courses are free to National Nurses United members. Classes are only offered to direct-care and staff RNs.

Course Description

This CE course will discuss circulating respiratory viral infections, including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, and Covid-19, often referred to as the “tripledemic.” An overview of scientific information regarding the viruses, immune responses, and transmission modes will be provided. Participants will then explore how the hospital industry’s normalizing of crisis standards of care has created a quad-demic and set the stage for the surge in respiratory viruses to become a crisis in health care. The implications for nurses’ advocacy for safe patient care will be discussed.

Course Objectives

After this course, participants should be able to:

• Describe how RSV, flu, and Covid are transmitted
• Discuss implications of the quad-demic for nurses and their advocacy for safe patient care.

Instructors: Jane Thomason and/or Rocelyn de Leon-Minch

Course Details:

This will be a 1-hour online class via Zoom for 1 hours of continuing education credit.

After registering, you will receive an invitation to the Zoom class via email. It is important that you respond to the invitation and register for the Zoom class prior to the day of the class.

CE courses are free to National Nurses United members. Classes are only offered to direct-care and staff RNs.

Course Description

Despite declarations that the Covid-19 pandemic is “over,” it continues to place an undue burden on disabled and chronically ill people, some of whom have become disabled as a result of Covid-19 itself. In fact, experts and advocates say that “Long Covid could be the greatest mass-disabling event in human history,” but it has received relatively little attention. Why?

Beginning with the case study of Covid-19, this class will explore how ableism is a social determinant of health. We will examine the history and function of ableism in medicine, law, and social policy in the U.S. and how these institutions came to define the ideal able, healthy, and productive body. We’ll consider how ableism intersects with racial, class, and gender oppression in the U.S. by marking some bodies as inherently more valuable than others. We will also look at how disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent people have long fought and resisted their pathologization and oppression at the hands of systems that deem them disposable.

This course will explore a social model that understands disability as a product of social environment. We’ll look to disability justice as a framework that views all bodies as essential, each with their own unique strengths and needs that must be—and can only be—met collectively. We’ll conclude by highlighting how nurses can integrate and advocate for disability justice as a practice of solidarity that recognizes the right of everybody to receive care with autonomy and dignity.

Course Objectives:

• Define common concepts and theories in disability studies
• Gain familiarity with the history and role of ableism in medicine, law, and U.S. social policy
• Articulate the connection between ableism and other forms of oppression related to gender, race, and class
• Apply disability justice concepts and approaches to patient advocacy

Instructor: Kel Montalvo-Quiñones

Course Details:

This will be a 3-hour online class via Zoom for 3 hours of continuing education credits. Check back soon for in-person dates.

After registering, you will receive an invitation to the Zoom class via email. It is important that you respond to the invitation and register for the Zoom class prior to the day of the class.

CE courses are free to National Nurses United members. Classes are only offered to direct-care and staff RNs.

Course Description

Racism and nursing have been intertwined since the inception of modern nursing. This course will examine the history of how racism has affected Black, Indigenous, and other people of color and how this history has set the stage for the ongoing structural racism that exists today within our health care settings. Nurses will be able to reflect on their own behavior in perpetuating biases and racism and analyze the current recommendations on how to move forward as an anti-racist. This will include recognizing and naming racism and working toward the deconstruction of structural racism based on white supremacy. To be anti-racist is both an idea and a call to action. Racism must be actively sought out and defeated. In turn, building a society based on social justice, equity, and worker solidarity.

Course Objectives

1. Explore the history of racism within the practice of nursing starting in the United Kingdom and then focusing on the United States
2. Describe how structural racism manifested within our health care institutions and recognize the parallels of these inequities between our health care intuitions and society at large.
3. Discover what it means to be anti-racist and how to fight structural racism through transforming both themselves and their communities

Instructor: Rochelle Pardue Okimoto, RN

Course Details:

This will be a 2-hour online class via Zoom for 2 hours of continuing education credits.

After registering, you will receive an invitation to the Zoom class via email. It is important that you respond to the invitation and register for the Zoom class prior to the day of the class.

CE courses are free to National Nurses United members. Classes are only offered to direct-care and staff RNs.

The Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread unabated around the world due to a near complete abandonment of public health measures and dissembling about the ongoing pandemic. Repeated surges in Covid infections, hospitalizations, and deaths put nurses and other health care workers at heightened and perpetual risk for infection and moral injury. As more individuals are continually exposed to and infected by SARS-CoV-2, reports of long-term health consequences have also increased (long Covid). This CE class will discuss the latest scientific updates about long Covid and the implications of these scientific updates for nurses, their patients, and advocacy for safe patient care.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this class, participants should be able to:​

• Describe major updates in scientific knowledge regarding long Covid
• Discuss the implications of long Covid for nurses, their patients, and advocacy for safe patient care

Instructor: Rocelyn de Leon-Minch and/or Jane Thomason

Course Details:

This will be a 2-hour online class via Zoom for 2 hours of continuing education credits.

After registering, you will receive an invitation to the Zoom class via email. It is important that you respond to the invitation and register for the Zoom class prior to the day of the class.

CE courses are free to National Nurses United members. Classes are only offered to direct-care and staff RNs.

This is a two-part, in-person CE Class from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (6 hours of CE credits)
*For UC Nurses, an additional hour will be available from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Part 1: No Body is Disposable: Disability Justice and Creating a Society of Care

Course Description

Despite declarations that the Covid-19 pandemic is “over,” it continues to place an undue burden on disabled and chronically ill people, some of whom have become disabled as a result of Covid-19 itself. In fact, experts and advocates say that “Long Covid could be the greatest mass-disabling event in human history,” but it has received relatively little attention. Why?

Beginning with the case study of Covid-19, this class will explore how ableism is a social determinant of health. We will examine the history and function of ableism in medicine, law, and social policy in the U.S. and how these institutions came to define the ideal able, healthy, and productive body. We’ll consider how ableism intersects with racial, class, and gender oppression in the U.S. by marking some bodies as inherently more valuable than others. We will also look at how disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent people have long fought and resisted their pathologization and oppression at the hands of systems that deem them disposable.

This course will explore a social model that understands disability as a product of social environment. We’ll look to disability justice as a framework that views all bodies as essential, each with their own unique strengths and needs that must be—and can only be—met collectively. We’ll conclude by highlighting how nurses can integrate and advocate for disability justice as a practice of solidarity that recognizes the right of everybody to receive care with autonomy and dignity.

Course Objectives:

• Define common concepts and theories in disability studies
• Gain familiarity with the history and role of ableism in medicine, law, and U.S. social policy
• Articulate the connection between ableism and other forms of oppression related to gender, race, and class
• Apply disability justice concepts and approaches to patient advocacy

Instructor: Kel Montalvo-Quiñones

Part 2: The Health of Our Economy: How Inflation and Economic Crises Impact Patients and Nurses

Course Description

This course will analyze how economic crises affect nurses, their patients, and communities. It will help nurses make sense of how current crises such as the continued economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic and inflation impact our health care system.

We will investigate how economic crises deepen existing racialized and gendered disparities in health outcomes, access, and coverage. We will also consider the ways in which financialization left both our health care system and economy massively underprepared for the Covid-19 pandemic at the expense of the most marginalized patients. We will conclude with an exploration of how nurses can utilize their collective power to lead in the fight for a future of economic and health justice.

Course Objectives:

• Explain how health care disparities and rising health care costs impact our economy.
• Identify how rising economic inequality has contributed to health care inequalities pertaining to health outcomes, access and coverage, especially for marginalized patients.
• Explore how nurses have used their collective voice to lead in times of economic crisis and advocate for an equitable health care system.

Instructor: Omid Mohamadi

Course Details:

This is a two-part, in-person CE Class from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (6 hours of CE credits)
*For UC Nurses, an additional hour will be available from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Please note: CNA/NNU is taking all necessary precautions to ensure the safety and health of nurses, our patients, and our communities during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. All in-person course participants are required to be fully vaccinated, wear masks while indoors, and practice social distancing to the extent possible.

CE courses are free to National Nurses United members. Classes are only offered to direct-care and staff RNs.