Continuing Education (CE) class catalog
Click on a calendar item above or scroll below to learn more about a course and register.
CE courses are free to National Nurses United members. Classes are only offered to direct-care and staff RNs.
Planet Over Profits and Preparing for the Next Pandemic
This is a two-part, in-person CE Class from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (6 hours of CE credits). If you're a UC nurse, an extra hour will be available from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Participants must be in attendance all day to receive the full 6 CEU CE credits, even if they have taken one of the classes prior to the sign-up date.
Part 1: Planet Over Profits: The Health Impacts of Environmental Crisis & What Nurses Can Do
Description
This course examines the impacts of human-driven disruption of the natural environment on human health and health care, from devastating extreme weather events to the spread of novel infectious diseases and increased exposure to toxic pollutants.
The class will explore how climate change impacts the health of patients, the working conditions of nurses, and public health. We will consider how and why environmental health risks are increasing for everyone while disproportionately impacting under-resourced communities. We will also look at how nurses and other health justice advocates can and already are responding to environmental crisis and discuss strategies for building a just transition to a more sustainable and healthy future.
Part 2: Preparing for the Next Pandemic: Advocacy for Robust Infection Prevention Protections for Nurses and Patients
Description
Scientists estimate that the likelihood of another novel pathogen turning into a worldwide pandemic grows each year. Preparedness is essential to ensure the safety of nurses, other health care workers, and patients. The devastation and loss that has come from health care employers' failures to prepare for the Covid-19 pandemic cannot be repeated. But the reality is that many health care employers are not only failing to prepare; they are neglecting essential measures to prevent transmission of pathogens seen in health care facilities every day — from TB to MRSA, influenza, C diff, and more. Each day, one in 31 U.S. patients contracts at least one infection associated with their health care. Health care-associated infections rose significantly early in the Covid-19 pandemic and rates continue to be high. Nurses and other health care workers are also at risk — nearly seven in ten nurses have sustained at least one infection at work.
This class will apply the scientific foundation for infection prevention to nurses' workplaces. We will discuss the steps that need to be taken to ensure that health care facilities are prepared to protect nurses and patients from known pathogens and the next pandemic.
Environments of harm: How health care facility buildings can endanger patient and nurse health & safety in a changing climate
Description
Hospitals and other health care settings should be places of refuge and healing in which nurses play a vital role in providing care to patients. But the reality is that nurses and patients can face hazards associated with poorly maintained and aging hospital infrastructure, including waterborne pathogens, poor air quality and ventilation, extreme temperatures, and slips, trips, and falls. Human-induced climate change is only amplifying those hazards through increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heatwaves, winter storms, and hurricanes, as well as the increased emergence of infectious diseases. Increasing extreme weather events and other emergencies can disrupt critical power and water supplies, damage hospital infrastructure, and overwhelm and prevent health care systems from delivering lifesaving care when facilities are not prepared.
This class will investigate building-related hazards that can impact the health and safety of nurses and patients, including water and air quality, the safety of the physical environment, and disaster preparedness. We will discuss the measures needed to ensure that health care facilities provide a safe care environment for nurses and patients.
Planet Over Profits: The Health Impacts of Environmental Crisis & What Nurses Can Do
Course Description
This course examines the impacts of human-driven disruption of the natural environment on human health and health care, from devastating extreme weather events to the spread of novel infectious diseases and increased exposure to toxic pollutants.
The class will explore how climate change impacts the health of patients, the working conditions of nurses, and public health. We will consider how and why environmental health risks are increasing for everyone while disproportionately impacting under-resourced communities. We will also look at how nurses and other health justice advocates can and already are responding to environmental crisis and discuss strategies for building a just transition to a more sustainable and healthy future.
Social Justice and Patient Advocacy
Course Description
Every day, registered nurses see how social injustice impacts the health and wellbeing of our patients. We advocate for our patients and ourselves at the bedside, in the workplace, and in our communities so that we all have the best chance to live healthy lives.
This class will explore the connections between racial justice, gender justice, and health justice. Participants will come away with a deeper understanding of the ways that injustice operates in our workplaces and communities, and how structural racism and gender oppression affects nurses, patients, and communities. We will learn how our intersecting fights for racial, gender, economic, healthcare, environmental, and global justice are the building blocks for a more equitable and sustainable world. Lastly, we will identify ways nurses can confront and overcome these systemic issues within their facilities and beyond.
How Financialization is Reshaping the Hospital Industry: What Nurses Need to Know
Course Description
This course will examine the increasing influence of Wall Street in health care and the parallel trend of hospital systems prioritizing their own financial investments over the provision of patient care. We will investigate the causes of these trends and their consequences for patients and nurses.
We will also assess how the increasing influence of financial actors intersects with other key health care trends, including monopolization in the hospital industry, the nurse staffing crisis, increased barriers to care and worsening health outcomes. We will conclude by exploring how nurses can respond to these trends and advocate for their patients and professions.
The Biology of Inequality: The Health Impacts of Social Environments
Course Description
Nurses know firsthand that social conditions affect access to health care, exposure to health risks, and health outcomes for patients. But what exactly are the pathways and mechanisms by which “social determinants” like poverty, pollution, and discrimination manifest in the body and impact health? This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to investigate how social, economic, and political inequalities and injustices materialize in individual, population, and even generational health. The class will also consider what the implications are for union nurses as patient advocates and discuss how nurses can help remedy the pathogenic effects of inequality and injustice on human health and society.
Investigating Long Covid and Its Impacts on Patient and Nurse Health
Course Description
Following acute Covid-19 infection, a significant proportion of people experience a broad array of persistent, debilitating symptoms known as long Covid. Studies estimate that about 17 million U.S. adults have long Covid and as many as 4 million are struggling to return to work or perform day-to-day activities. Long Covid is a multifaceted, disabling condition that can impact nearly every organ system for which there is no treatment or cure. Inadequate workplace and public health protections and cuts to long Covid programs and scientific research will render more people vulnerable to a disabling disease. This course will discuss the latest scientific updates on long Covid, implications for health inequities, and what nurses can do to advocate for safe working and patient care conditions.
Our Patients are Safe When We Are Safe: Workplace Violence and Back Injury Prevention in Health Care Facilities
Course Description
Nurses and other health care workers experience some of the highest rates of work-related injuries and illnesses of any occupation in the United States. Most nurses experience back pain and other musculoskeletal disorders at some point in their career. Workplace violence continues to accelerate and can cause both physical injuries and significant anxiety, stress, and trauma for nurses. Both musculoskeletal injuries and workplace violence are major contributors to nurses leaving the profession. And the reality is, when nurses are at risk, patients are also at risk.
Health care employers have a legal and ethical obligation to provide a safe and healthy care environment free from hazards. This class will analyze the issues of workplace violence and back injuries and how they threaten nurses’ health and safety at work. We will examine the evidence on available prevention measures that would effectively protect nurses and patients. The class will conclude with a discussion regarding the tools that nurses can use to advocate for safer patient care conditions.
Partnering with our Patients: Nurses, Worker Power, and Health Justice
Course Description
We know there is a strong correlation between unionization and improved health outcomes for workers. For nurses, this connection can also positively impact their patients. This course will analyze how union nurses have partnered with patients to respond to a radically changing healthcare system and economy. We will examine the growth of RNs’ collective power through decades of organizing and how these struggles have improved the health and welfare of nurses, patients, and communities across the country. We will also look at the broader history of unions in the U.S., examine current debates about the future of workers and unions, and identify reforms that would further empower nurses in the fight for workplace health and safety, high-quality patient care, and health justice in our communities.
Our Patients are Safe When We Are Safe and Environments of Harm
This is a two-part, in-person CE Class from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (6 hours of CE credits). If you're a UC nurse, an extra hour will be available from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Participants must be in attendance all day to receive the full 6 CEU CE credits, even if they have taken one of the classes prior to the sign-up date.
Part 1: Our Patients are Safe When We Are Safe: Workplace Violence and Back Injury Prevention in Health Care Facilities
Description
Nurses and other health care workers experience some of the highest rates of work-related injuries and illnesses of any occupation in the United States. Most nurses experience back pain and other musculoskeletal disorders at some point in their career. Workplace violence continues to accelerate and can cause both physical injuries and significant anxiety, stress, and trauma for nurses. Both musculoskeletal injuries and workplace violence are major contributors to nurses leaving the profession. And the reality is, when nurses are at risk, patients are also at risk.
Health care employers have a legal and ethical obligation to provide a safe and healthy care environment free from hazards. This class will analyze the issues of workplace violence and back injuries and how they threaten nurses’ health and safety at work. We will examine the evidence on available prevention measures that would effectively protect nurses and patients. The class will conclude with a discussion regarding the tools that nurses can use to advocate for safer patient care conditions.
Part 2: Environments of Harm: How Health Care Facility Buildings Can Endanger Patient and Nurse Health & Safety in a Changing Climate
Description
Hospitals and other health care settings should be places of refuge and healing in which nurses play a vital role in providing care to patients. But the reality is that nurses and patients can face hazards associated with poorly maintained and aging hospital infrastructure, including waterborne pathogens, poor air quality and ventilation, extreme temperatures, and slips, trips, and falls. Human-induced climate change is only amplifying those hazards through increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heatwaves, winter storms, and hurricanes, as well as the increased emergence of infectious diseases. Increasing extreme weather events and other emergencies can disrupt critical power and water supplies, damage hospital infrastructure, and overwhelm and prevent health care systems from delivering lifesaving care when facilities are not prepared.
This class will investigate building-related hazards that can impact the health and safety of nurses and patients, including water and air quality, the safety of the physical environment, and disaster preparedness. We will discuss the measures needed to ensure that health care facilities provide a safe care environment for nurses and patients.