*NNU is taking all necessary precautions to ensure the safety and health of nurses, our patients, and our communities during the COVID-19 crisis. As part of these efforts, we will be making adjustments to our continuing education schedule and moving classes online wherever possible. Nurses registered for the courses below will be notified in advance of any changes. As soon as it is safe to do so, we will return to in-person classes.
Please see below for course-specific information, and check back regularly for updates.
SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19: Recent Scientific Research and Analysis
Scientific research about the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 continues to evolve. This CE class will review recent significant scientific findings about the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This class will also invite participants to analyze what those scientific findings mean for nurses in their advocacy for safe patient care.
Objectives: After this class, participants should be able to:
1. Describe significant scientific findings regarding the SARS-CoV-2 virus
2. Discuss what these scientific findings mean for nurses in their advocacy for safe patient care.
Instructors: Rocelyn de Leon-Minch and Jane Thomason
2 hours for 2 CE credits
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Current Knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 and an Update on the Covid-19 Pandemic
This CE class will review the current state of scientific knowledge about the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We will also discuss the status of the Covid-19 pandemic that began in January 2020 and has impacted nurses and other healthcare workers around the world.
Objectives: After this class, participants should be able to:
1. Describe the current state of scientific knowledge about the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
2. Discuss the status of the Covid-19 pandemic
Instructors: Rocelyn de Leon-Minch and Jane Thomason
2 hours for 2 CE credits
Locations
Endangerment of Nurses and Patients: Exploring and Explaining the Burnout and Workplace Violence Epidemics
This class will investigate the dual epidemics of workplace violence and burnout and what they mean for nurses today, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic that has exposed the long-standing failures of the health care industry to protect the health and safety of nurses and their patients. Using national and state level data and peer-reviewed literature and drawing on participants’ direct experiences, we will examine the relationship between health care industry restructuring of nurses’ work and risk factors for workplace violence and nurse burnout. Understanding this relationship reveals powerful structural solutions to workplace violence, stress, and burnout for nurses.
Objectives: upon completion of this class, participants will be able to:
- Describe root causes for workplace violence, stress, and burnout experienced by nurses
- Identify strategies that aim to restructure nurses’ work
- Discuss steps nurses can take to advocate for safer patient care.
Instructors: Patricia Gonzalez, RN, Rocelyn De Leon-Minch, Jane Thomason
3 hours for 3 CE credits
Locations
Confronting Institutionalized Racism in Health Care
This course will identify institutional factors that contribute to racial disparities in health care. It will analyze patterns and practices throughout the health care system that contribute to unequal resources, health opportunities, and power, which in turn cause harm to patients of color and their communities.
The course will also examine how the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to further entrench racism in health care. Different health care industries are attempting to use the pandemic to increase profits to the detriment of racial justice. At the same time, there has been a dangerous revival of pharmaceutical and biotech research that substitutes race for other, as yet unidentified causal pathways. Even as Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people are contracting and dying of Covid-19 at alarming rates, insurance companies have made record profits as non-Covid related services have declined, and hospital systems remain unaccountable for facility closures in communities with the highest health needs.
The course will conclude with a discussion of the ways that Medicare for All would redress structural racial disparities in health care as well as how equality in health care is central to the broader fight for racial justice.
Objectives:
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:
- Define institutionalized racism
- Identify how racism has been historically institutionalized across the health care system and how this relates to structural racism in the wider economy
- Explain how the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to further entrench racism in specific health care industries
- Understand the role of nurse advocacy in advancing institutional solutions for redressing systemic racism
- Discuss how Medicare for All can help dismantle patterns of institutionalized racism and rectify racial health disparities
Instructor: Omid Mohamadi
Course Details:
This will be a hybrid course consisting of a 2-hour online class via Zoom followed by a 1-hour home study that can be completed on the same day for a total of 3 hours of continuing education credits. An additional, optional hour of home study will be available for California-based nurses. 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. If you have any questions, please contact Valerie Gonzalez at vgonzalez@calnurses.org.
Note: This class is frequently scheduled back-to-back with the class Queering Care: Ensuring LGBTQI+ Equity in Delivery of Nursing Care. Nurses interested in registering for both classes can receive up to 7 credits if taken on the same day.
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Queering Care: Ensuring LGBTQI+ Equity in Delivery of Nursing Care
This course will examine the unmet health needs and unique healthcare disparities faced by LGBTQI+ people in the US by situating poor health outcomes within the social, political, and economic determinants of health. 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.
Careful review of ongoing struggles for LGBTQI+ health justice reveals nurses’ roles as fierce advocates and public health allies. Nurses are instrumental in resisting systemic homophobia and transphobia as part of the larger collective fight for social justice and public health and safety.
Objectives: Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:
- Define basic terms and concepts of LGBTQI+ care
- Identify the health needs and healthcare disparities faced by LGBTQI+ people
- Broaden the understanding of the social and economic determinants of these disparities
- Recognize the unique professional role of nurses in providing and planning LGBTQI+ care
Instructors: Kel Montalvo-Quiñones and Patricia Gonzalez, RN
Course Details:
This will be a 3-hour online class via Zoom for 3 hours 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. If you have any questions, please contact Valerie Gonzalez at vgonzalez@calnurses.org.
Note: This class is frequently scheduled back-to-back with the class Confronting Institutionalized Racism in Health Care. Nurses interested in registering for both classes can receive up to 7 credits if taken on the same day.
Locations
Covid-19 and the Global Pharmaceutical Industry: Behind the Search for a Vaccine
This class will detail the structure of the global pharmaceutical industry and the process of vaccine development. We will address such questions as: where does funding for vaccine research come from? Do patents and intellectual property laws encourage or inhibit innovation? What sort of regulations must be in place to reduce risk and protect the public health? For perspective, the class will look at some historical breakthroughs in vaccine development in the United States, explore what has changed in the intervening years, and examine whether our current system is suited to meet the demands of global need. Looking ahead, we will outline what steps we can take to ensure equitable access to any new vaccines that have proven safe and effective. Lastly and crucially, we will examine what about our current system of drug and vaccine development must change in order to meet the challenge of future pandemics.
Objectives: Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:
- Describe the current structure of the global pharmaceutical industry and whether it helps or hinders equitable access to life-saving medications and vaccines
- Discuss the difference between drug distribution models that treat vaccines as commodities versus public goods and the implications of each model for the public health
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 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. If you have any questions, please contact Valerie Gonzalez at vgonzalez@calnurses.org.