Continuing Education (CE) Class Catalog

When the Covid-19 pandemic began in early 2020, little was known about the novel coronavirus. During the course of the pandemic, scientific knowledge about the coronavirus has expanded. This CE class will review the state of the science regarding SARS-CoV-2 and infection control measures. We will focus on the scientific findings important for nurses and their advocacy for safe working conditions and safe patient care.

Objectives: After this class, participants should be able to:

• Describe major advances in scientific knowledge regarding SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19 and related infection control measures.
• Discuss the implications of these scientific updates for nurses and their advocacy for safe working conditions and safe patient care.

Instructors: Rocelyn de Leon-Minch, Rochelle Pardue-Okimoto, and/or Jane Thomason

Length of class: 2 hours for 2 CE credits

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

Workplace violence impacts nurses and other health care workers at extremely high rates and has been further exacerbated during the Covid-19 pandemic. This course will provide a review of the Cal/OSHA Workplace Violence Prevention in Health Care standard. We will facilitate a discussion on how nurses can use Cal/OSHA’s standard to advocate for workplace violence prevention and safer patient care conditions. Nurses will leave this class with strategies and next steps on advocating for workplace violence prevention in their workplaces.

Note: This class is open to all nurses but will be specific to California law and most applicable for nurses who are currently working in the State of California.

Objectives: Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:

• Discuss the scope and requirements of Cal/OSHA's Workplace Violence Prevention in Health Care standard
• Discuss effective workplace violence prevention strategies to advocate for safer health care settings for both nurses and patients

2 hours for 2 CEUs

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

New technologies are being deployed in health care at an ever-increasing pace and with little transparency or accountability. This course will discuss the crucial role of nurses in determining how and whether such technology should be employed in the care of their patients. We will analyze how algorithms and related technologies have perpetuated systemic mistreatment of marginalized patients, especially when designed by non-clinicians guided by the goals of profit and efficiency. And we will detail how nurses are fighting to ensure that all communities receive the safe and equitable treatment they deserve.  

Objectives:

• Explain how purportedly neutral health care technologies can encode biases and perpetuate health disparities
• Articulate why effective patient advocacy entails safeguarding RNs’ clinical judgment, including the right to override health information technology
• Describe the limitations of technical fixes to health care, and explain why systemic changes are needed to ensure that technology can produce equitable health outcomes

Instructor: 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.

This is the first of two classes focusing on public health. This first class will explore the history of the public health movement, featuring exemplary individuals who brought insights, energy and leadership to the long struggle to enact public health policies.​ The course will focus on nurses as guardians of the public’s health, through inspiring examples of nurse-led social programs and community initiatives, and the significant contribution the nursing profession has made to the progress of public health.​

The second class will be presented in the fall and will focus on the present and the challenges and opportunities to improve public health starkly illustrated by the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:​

1. Understand historic challenges to enacting robust public health measures and systems.​ ​
2. Describe Nurses historic and current role in promoting public health.​ ​
3. Identify how knowledge of past nurse led public health initiatives can inform present day nurses on how to effectively advocate for and lead equitable comprehensive, public health systems.

Instructors: Gerard Brogan, RN, Patricia Gonzalez, RN, Rochelle Pardue-Okimoto, RN

Course Details

This will be a 3-hour online class via Zoom for 3 hour of continuing education credits.

After registering at the link below, 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.

This course will examine the unmet health needs and unique health care disparities faced by LGBTQI+ people in the US. Rather than approach gender and sexuality as innate facts, we will trace the history of these categories and analyze the ways in which they regulate people’s access and proximity to the resources, institutions, and material means of sustaining life. Accordingly, we will look at how cultural stigma, institutional discrimination, interpersonal and state violence, clinical pathologization, and legal attacks on civil rights converge to create the conditions of ill-health for queer and trans patients. We will also look to historical and contemporary examples of queer and trans resistance and resiliency in the face of gender and sexual oppression.

Within this context, the course reviews ongoing struggles for LGBTQI+ health justice and reveals nurses’ vital contributions to ensuring equitable care for LGBTQI+ patients. As patient advocates, nurses have a unique role in resisting institutional discrimination, fighting for social justice, and providing care that recognizes everyone’s self-determination, bodily autonomy, and right to health.

Objectives

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

1. Identify the health and health care disparities faced by LGBTQI+ people and their root social, economic, political, and historical causes.
2. Analyze gender and sexuality as social determinants of health.
3. Describe the unique role of nurses in providing equitable care and resisting institutional discrimination.

Instructor: Kel Montalvo-Quinones

Course Details

This will be a 3-hour online class via Zoom for 3 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.

From hospitals to health insurance to pharmaceuticals, today’s health care industries are increasingly dominated by monopolies. This class will explore the causes and effects of corporate consolidation and market concentration; how monopoly power in health care and other parts of the economy threatens the health and wellbeing of nurses, patients, and our communities; and what nurses can do to fight the monopoly epidemic.

Objectives: Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:

• Identify the drivers of increasing monopolization in health care
• Describe the health and socioeconomic impacts of this trend
• Explain how to address the monopoly epidemic through collective action, regulation, and comprehensive health care reform like Medicare for All.

Instructor: Chris Nielsen

Course Details

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

After registering at the link below, 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.

Too many nurses have been hit, kicked, punched, spat on, threatened, and experienced violence on the job. When nurses are at risk for workplace violence, their patients are also at risk. This course is a deep dive into advocacy for workplace violence prevention. We will discuss facts, myths, and how to make a strong argument for workplace violence prevention. Come prepared to participate in conversation with other nurses advocating for safe patient care conditions!

Objectives: After this course, participants will be able to:

1. Discuss effective workplace violence prevention measures.
2. Describe ways nurses can advocate for workplace violence prevention to protect nurse and patient safety.

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

1 hour for 1 CEU