Essential Learning for Nurses
COVID-19
Help for Today
Hope for Tomorrow

Supported by The Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented strain on nurses.

Despite the heavy burden you’ve carried, you’ve risen to the challenge to meet your patients’ needs during the crisis.

You profession is rising to the challenge, too — in recognizing and acting on the need to better prepare nurses to provide excellent health care in a rapidly changing world.

This free learning opportunity offers expert advice for a path toward restoring your own health and, together with your colleagues, revitalizing your profession to continue to provide optimal patient care.

Topics On This Page

Strengthening the Nursing Profession
Nursing’s Role in Ensuring Health Equity
Nursing Innovation and Influence
Nurse Engagement Strategies

Easing the Burden of COVID-19
Cumulative Grief
Traumatic Stress
Moral Distress
Mental Health
Maladaptive Coping
Moral Resilience
Self-Compassion

Strengthening the Nursing Profession

Nurse leaders share lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and measures to restore the profession’s vitality.

The Next Step for Nursing: Ensuring Health Equity
With Susan Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN
A nursing icon, Dr. Hassmiller, of the National Academy of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action initiative, shares insight into what’s next for nursing, as outlined in the May 2021 report, The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity.

Innovators and Influencers: Nurses’ Growing Roles
Part 1 With Bonnie Clipper, DNP, MBA, MA, FACHE
Nurses don’t often think of themselves as innovators, even though they’re expert at devising workarounds to meet the needs of patients. Dr. Clipper, a nursing innovation authority and best-selling author, reveals how nurses can use their natural innovative spirit to drive inventive healthcare solutions.

Innovation Rising: The COVID-19 Example
Part 2 With Bonnie Clipper, DNP, MBA, MA, FACHE
Dr. Clipper discusses how nurses have been at the center of healthcare innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic and the positive changes nurses can stimulate when they’re involved in the design and development of inventive solutions to patient care challenges.

Engagement: Not Just a Monthly Survey
With Lori Armstrong, DNP, RN, NEA-BC
Engagement isn’t just a buzzword or monthly reporting requirement for nurse leaders. It’s all about building relationships between nurses and their jobs, their organizations, and their profession — and it’s tantamount to the post-pandemic success of a healthy nursing workforce. Dr. Armstrong, chief executive of Inspire Nurse Leaders^™, explains why.

Easing the Burden of COVID-19

Learn how the burdens of the COVID-19 pandemic affect your personal well-being and self-care practices
to help you thrive personally and professionally.

COVID-19’s Painful Grip: Cumulative Grief
With Lillie Shockney, MAS, RN
Death is no stranger to nurses, but the staggering loss of life during the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented — and it threatens to lead to unprecedented, unresolved, grief among frontline nurses. Shockney, an expert in cancer loss and survivorship who is on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a two-time breast cancer survivor, discusses nurses’ risk for the consequences of lasting grief.

Pandemic Remnants: Secondary Traumatic Stress
With Lesly Kelly, PhD, RN, FAAN
For nurses across specialties and settings, the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified feelings of stress, moral anguish, and exhaustion common in nursing practice. Dr. Kelly, a noted nurse scientist who explores outcomes associated with clinician well-being, explains secondary traumatic stress and its implications for nurses during and after the COVID-19 crisis.

Send Nurses Care image

Develop a Gratitude Attitude

It feels good to be appreciated, but giving appreciation has benefits, too. Research has long shown that extending thanks to others can contribute to emotional and physical well-being.

Here’s a quick and easy way to show your support for your colleagues.

Send a carepostcard in real time to the people who help get you through a tough shift — or a global pandemic.

Create a CarePostCard

COVID-19 Moral Distress: Balancing the Challenges
With Christine Mitchell, RN, MS, MGTS, FAAN
Professional duty clashing with personal health and safety concerns is just one of many dilemmas nurses have faced on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. A renowned nurse ethicist and executive director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, Dr. Mitchell explains moral distress and explores best practices for resolving pandemic-prompted ethical issues.

A Crisis to Come? COVID-19’s Mental Health Toll
Reimund Serafica, PhD, MSN, APRN
Dr. Serafica, a board-certified psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner and tenured associate professor at the University of Nevada School of Nursing, shares insight into compassion fatigue and other challenges nurses have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with strategies nurses can use to rebuild their emotional well-being.

Let’s Talk About It: Nurse Suicide

With Judy Davidson, DNP, RN, FAAN

It’s a startling fact:
Nurses are at higher risk for suicide than the general population.

Another fact:
During pandemics or other ongoing disasters, the risk of suicide among the public and healthcare workers rises.

This is a vulnerable time.

Dr. Davidson, a nurse scientist at University of California San Diego, shares her findings on the incidence of and underlying reasons for nurse suicide.

LISTEN 0:00

It’s Time to Talk About It
If you or a colleague are in distress or crisis,
please reach out for free and confidential support.

Caution for Nurses: Beware Maladaptive Coping
With Tiffany Swedeen, BSN, RN
An experienced critical care nurse, Tiffany Swedeen knows all too well how the demands of nursing can lead some nurses to unhealthy behaviors. Swedeen, who worked in the medical ICU where the first COVID-19 patient in the U.S. received treatment, shares her personal story of recovery from substance use and offers strategies for managing the extraordinary responsibilities nurses carry during crisis.

Shed Stress With Stories

Storytelling is one of the oldest healing practices.
As a personal intervention, telling your story — and reading the stories
of your colleagues — can help you reflect on and make sense of your shared COVID-19 experiences.

In 2020 DearWorld.org partnered with the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses
to showcase the stories of frontline nurses caring for patients with COVID-19 in their own words.

Find inspiration in the stories
at the Dear Nurses Project and share your story with your peers

Photos by DearWorld.org/Daymon Gardner

#DearNurses

Integrity Intact: Building Moral Resilience
With Cynda Hylton Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN
Unprocessed moral distress can threaten the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of nurses. Internationally recognized nurse ethicist Cynda Hylton Rushton discusses how developing moral resilience can help nurses thrive, even when faced with overwhelming ethical dilemmas. Dr. Rushton is professor clinical ethics at Johns Hopkins School of nursing and co-chairs the Johns Hopkins Hospital Ethics Consultation Service.

Self-Compassion: You Deserve Tender Treatment
With Trish Hart, MBA
It has been said that caring for others requires caring for oneself. Self-compassion is an essential component of self-care for nurses. Trish Hart, founder and stress management specialist for Hart Mind Body Solutions, explains how nurses can offer the same tender treatment to themselves as they do their patients.

Care Package Delivery!

Wellness Anywhere Nearly Anytime
With Becky Vollmer,
Experienced-Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT)

Your personal yoga and meditation teacher, Becky Vollmer, will guide you toward stress reduction in mere minutes with four easy exercises you can practice anywhere – at home, in the breakroom, or in your car. No stretchy pants needed!

Resources

Apps, Podcasts, and Videos

American Nurses Association Well-Being Initiative
Podcasts and other resources designed with nurses’ well-being in mind.

Coronavirus Sanity Guide
Mindfulness podcasts from the popular Ten Percent Happier project.

Down Dog
Personalized yoga, meditation, and mindfulness app free to healthcare professionals through July 1, 2021.

Mindful
Articles on meditation, mindfulness and other self-care practices, including videos
addressing healthcare professionals.

The Future of Nursing 2020-2030
Register to view a four-part webinar series detailing the National Academy of Medicine’s blueprint for the next decade of nursing practice.

Support

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Advice and guidance for protecting your mental health during the COVID-19 crisis.

Talkspace
COVID-19 mental health resources and free or discounted therapist-led support groups.

PeerRxMed
Free peer-to-peer support program for healthcare professionals.

Links, Fact Sheets, Toolkits, and More

American Psychiatric Nurses Association
Tips and toolkits for managing pandemic-related stress and maintaining mental health .

ANA Enterprise Innovation
Learn about events and tools designed to help you move forward with your ideas or foster a culture of innovation in your workplace.

Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress
Downloadable fact sheets covering a variety of mental health topics.

Inspire Nurse Leaders
Find courses and other resources to help you grow as a nurse leader.

National Academy of Medicine
Discussion and links to a variety of health and well-being resources for healthcare professionals.

Delve Deeper: Recommended CE

FREE WEBINARS
Courtesy of Elite Learning when you use the applicable promo code at checkout.

Nurse Resilience in the Age of COVID-19

1.0 Contact Hour
Promo Code: RESILENCE100
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Self-Care Shortcuts: Discover the Science Behind Your Story

1.0 Contact Hour
Promo Code: SELF200
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Easing COVID-19 Stress Through Yoga’s Breath and Body Connection

1.0 Contact Hour
Promo Code: YOGA100
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From Exhaustion to Extraordinary: Strategies to Reverse Nurse Fatigue

1.0 Contact Hour
Promo Code: FATIGUE100
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Healthcare Humor: Take Time to Laugh

1.0 Contact Hour
Promo Code: HUMOR100
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Essential Learning for Nurses COVID-19 Help for Today Hope for Tomorrow