Online CE and Professional Development

This program provides the Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) the knowledge and skills needed to care for patients with anorectal pathology. This course will focus on the clinical skills needed to treat common anorectal conditions in the office setting including internal and external hemorrhoids, fissures, condyloma, perianal abscesses, pilonidal disease, and pruritus ani. This course will also cover the required knowledge of anal anatomy and examination, disease processes, and the skills to perform these necessary procedures.

Target audience: Advanced Practice Providers (APPs), RNs pursuing advanced practice degrees, Physician Assistants (PAs) students, and RNs that are interested in increasing their knowledge base of anorectal pathology.

Opioid-use disorder (OUD) has become a national crisis, killing over 100 Americans daily and costing 78 billion dollars annually. The current therapy for opioid abuse has limited success with significant side effects, illicit use, and high attrition rates. However, research has demonstrated that immunopharmacotherapy a new treatment for opioid addiction in the pre-clinical phase, elicits an immune response which lacks abuse potential and decreases related mortality. Compared to current treatments, immunopharmacotherapy against a targeted opioid could offer suppression of addiction liability and overdose potential over an extended period of time without placing excessive compliance demands and adverse effects on the person.

This course was designed to assist healthcare practitioners in developing a solid understanding of serotonin toxicity including the knowledge to identify, prevent, and manage cases of serotonin syndrome as well as utilize a consistent diagnostic tool to promptly recognize and treat this potentially life-threatening condition. Application of this knowledge in practice will decrease the risk of serotonin syndrome as well as reduce the number of misdiagnoses. In turn, this will increase safety when caring for patients already taking antidepressant medications presenting to the perioperative setting and to pain clinics where opioid analgesics are commonly administered or prescribed.

This program is designed as a self-paced course for sonographers seeking continuing education in pediatric cardiac sonography. An overview of heart anatomy will be included including heart development, orientation, planes, and segments. Imaging protocol specific to the pediatric patient will be demonstrated, and anatomy unique to pediatric cardiac imaging will be explored, including congenital variants. A number of cardiac heart defects will be described, and interventional procedures and surgical repairs will be explained. An introduction to imaging the fetal heart will be provided to include basic biometry and fetal anatomy and survey.

POINT-OF-CARE-ULTRASOUND Gastric Assessment or POCUS gastric assessment is a new method of ultrasound testing that allows the provider to obtain real-time, objective results at the bedside to improve patient care. While the current NPO guidelines may seem adequate, the low rate of actual aspiration has given a false sense of security, leaving providers to rely on a generalized protocol. The literature identifies POCUS gastric assessment as a quick and effective method yielding high benefits with low harm to the patient. POCUS gastric assessment can be applied to surgical patients to determine the exact amount of stomach content and the risk of aspiration before anesthesia. This course provides education on performing a POCUS gastric assessment and highlights the high-risk populations and circumstances that typically overestimate current NPO guidelines.

Target Audience: Healthcare professionals involved in preoperative care. This list includes but is not limited to CRNAS, SRNAs, MDs, Nurse Practitioners, Physicians Assistants, RNs, or Preoperative nurses. The recommended prerequisite is a basic understanding of ultrasound equipment.

There are an estimated 1.4 million adults in the United States that currently identify as transgender and 61% of those transgender individuals have pharmaceutically transitioned with Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) and 25% have undergone Gender Affirming Surgery (GAS). These therapies and practices lead to potential perioperative complications. This course is designed to increase awareness and evidence-based knowledge regarding perioperative complications in the transgender individual undergoing surgery and offer recommendations regarding the anesthetic care of this population.

Target Audience: Healthcare professionals involved in perioperative care. This list includes but is not limited to CRNAS, SRNAs, MDs, Nurse Practitioners, Physicians Assistants, RNs, or Preoperative nurses.