CE Classes & Workshops

For decades, nurses have led the fight to make health care a right in America. Because of their efforts, Medicare for All is closer than ever to becoming a reality. But the prospect of success also raises new questions about how universal, single-payer health care will work and, specifically, how it will affect nurses.

This class will seek to answer those questions by exploring how Medicare for All will work in the U.S—how the program will be designed, how hospitals and other providers will be funded, how health care resources will be allocated to rural and underserved areas, and how high-quality care will be delivered to all. This course will also look at how Medicare for All will improve the quality of nursing jobs, strengthen health and safety and patient care standards, and safeguard nurses’ clinical judgement, among other topics.

In addition to providing participants with a detailed look at Medicare for All, this will also be an interactive course in which nurses will have ample opportunities to ask questions they may have about the program. This course will equip nurses with the basic tools they need to put this knowledge into action for the good of their patients, their profession and their communities.

Upon completion of this program, participants will be able to:

1. Answer common questions about how Medicare for All would impact nurses’ patients, communities, and their own professional practice.
2. Explain how a Medicare for All (single-payer) system will work, including how resources will be allocated to ensure a single standard of high-quality care for all, and how the program will impact nurses’ working conditions and job quality.
3. Articulate what Medicare for All will solve and what challenges will remain under a single-payer system.
4. Explain how nurses can work with patients, other clinicians and caregivers, and their communities to achieve health justice through Medicare for All and more

*Nurses will be notified of the venue when it becomes available

Workplace violence is a growing epidemic in hospitals and other health care settings. Nurses and other health care workers encounter 5 to 12 times more workplace violence than workers overall in the United States. Simultaneously, nurses report extremely high rates of stress, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and burnout. Research has shown that as many as 86 percent of nurses report burnout syndrome and 22 percent of nurses have symptoms  of PTSD. 

This class will investigate the epidemics of workplace violence and burnout and what they mean for nurses today. Using national and state-level data and peer-reviewed literature, we will examine the relationship between the structure and management of the health care industry and risk factors for workplace violence and nurse burnout. Understanding this relationship reveals powerful structural solutions to workplace violence, stress, and burnout for nurses.

Course Objectives:

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

• Describe the epidemics of workplace violence and burnout among nurses.
• Explain the impact of workplace violence and nurse burnout on patient care.
• Discuss how direct care nurses can take steps to end the workplace violence and burnout epidemics.

Nurses know that at the root of this crisis is a health care system that puts profits over people. But why does America have the system it has, when virtually every other wealthy nation manages to guarantee health care as a right — and at a fraction of the cost? Why do industry leaders and politicians continue to engage in endless policy debates when a majority of the public already agrees that Medicare for All is the obvious solution to our healthcare crisis? How can nurses help achieve Medicare for All so that America can join the rest of the industrialized world in guaranteeing health care as a right for all people? What else will RNs have to do, beyond winning Medicare for All, in order to bring about real health justice in the United States? This class will provide answers to these questions and will equip nurses with the basic tools they need to put this knowledge into action for the good of their patients, their profession, and their communities.

Course Objectives:

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

• Draw on a wide range of up-to-date research and international comparisons to accurately diagnose the underlying causes of the current health care crisis.
• Describe how a Medicare for All (single-payer) system works, and explain how it will lower health care costs, improve patient outcomes and public health, and safeguard the nursing profession.
• Assess how Medicare for All compares to other health care reform proposals on ethical, clinical, professional, and socioeconomic grounds.
• Articulate which problems Medicare for All will solve and what challenges will remain under a single-payer system.
• Explain how nurses can work with patients, other clinicians and caregivers, and their communities to achieve health justice through Medicare for All and more.

6 CEH classes 9:00 am – 4:00 pm, additional hour available.

What are diseases of devastation? How did the current opioid epidemic begin and why has it grown so aggressively? What role do pharmaceutical companies and market-based medicine play in the proliferation of opioid prescriptions?

Of concern to registered nurses is that drug overdose is now the leading cause of injury and death in the United States — claiming 350,000 lives over the past two decades, with 47,000 deaths in 2017 alone. Twenty seven states have sued the pharmaceutical companies behind the opioid explosion. Yet, people who are in dire need of healthcare and treatment are targeted and penalized for opioid use. As opioids claim lives from nearly every gender, race, ethnicity, and community in the United States, disparate treatment and police responses to the epidemic expose deep-seated race-based fault lines in the U.S. health care and criminal justice systems. Opioid use disorder should be treated as a public health issue. By comparing the opioid crisis with similar diseases of devastation, nurses will analyze the opioid epidemic as a symptom of the outsized influence of Big Pharma in our broken, for-profit health care system.

The class will conclude with discussion of systemic interventions nurses can take to heal diseases of devastation and protect nurses’ professional judgment.

Course Objectives:

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

• Describe diseases of devastation, specifically the opioid epidemic.
• Discuss the role of rising drug prices, “me too” drugs, and race in opioid treatment policy.
• Compare and contrast registered nurses’ role in advocating for robust public health measures with the pharmaceutical industry’s exploitation of public health.
• Explain how nurses’ advocacy for systemic public health interventions — like Medicare for All and others — can counter Big Pharma’s hold on our health care system.

All class times 9:00 am – 4:00 pm, additional hour available.

As a nurse, maybe you work in the same community in which you were born and raised. Or, maybe you’ve traveled to your current facility from another neighborhood, another state, or another region of the world. In all these cases, nurses reflect the communities they care for. As patient populations become increasingly diverse, nurses combine on-the-ground community knowledge with the global perspective that’s needed to care for their patients.

This course will examine the role of RNs as global citizens. We will investigate how the nursing profession responds to an international “crisis of care” by pitting the values advocacy and compassion against the exploitative systems their patients face every day. From a historical standpoint, we will explore the ethical challenges and solutions that nurses have faced since the inception of the profession. We will also draw more modern comparisons between RNs and other global caring professions in order to understand how nurses are part of a broader struggle for care, health equity, and justice.

Course Objectives:

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

• Identify how global migration patterns shape patient and caregiver communities.
• Explain how the nursing profession responds to the needs of a global crisis in care.
• Enumerate the social and economic conditions faced by over 19 million nurses across the globe.
• Articulate why the public holds trust and faith in nurses and how nurse ethics can continue to foster confidence in the profession.
• Describe the connections between RNs and other care professionals who form a global movement for care justice.

COURSE TIME:

All class times 9:00 am – 4:00 pm, additional hour available.