Continuing Professional Education

Lupus is a complex autoimmune disease with a wide variety of clinical presentations. These factors make it difficult to diagnose and a challenge to manage and treat.

The Lupus Foundation of America creates professional education opportunities in support of its mission to be a valuable resource for health care professionals and deliver state-of-the-science programs. Here, you can find evidence-based learning opportunities created for different members of health care teams on specific topics like diagnosis, treatment, outcomes, and pathogenesis.

Nurse showing tablet to patient clinic lobby

Continuing education through the EMPOWER program

Educating My Patients on Ways to Safely Engage in Research (EMPOWER) seeks to reduce lupus-related health disparities among racial and ethnic minority populations – who are disproportionately affected by lupus – by improving knowledge about lupus, its treatments, and clinical trials. This program was developed by the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. It is supported by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office of Minority Health National Lupus Outreach and Clinical Trial Education Program.

Learn more about the program

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Continuing Education for Primary Care Providers

Primary care providers play a vital role in early diagnosis of lupus. The Lupus Foundation of America, in partnership with the Lupus New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians (NJAFP), is offering a free on-demand, two-part CME-accredited webinar series. Topics include recognizing the signs and symptoms of lupus, lupus diagnosis including diagnostic criteria, treatment and disease management, communication skills and patient self-management resources. The goal of this CME-accredited webinar series is to reduce time to diagnosis and improve the overall quality of life of those living with lupus.

Review the course material

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Continuing education provided by the Lupus Initiative

The Lupus Initiative is a national program of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) that is dedicated to reducing health disparities in lupus. It offers CME/CE for physicians and other health professionals to improve the quality of care in those with – or at risk for – lupus. A range of courses is available.

Course information and registration

A doctor uses a stethoscope to listen to the heart of a young patient sitting on a doctor's table.

Continuing education through Medscape

Effective patient-clinician interaction is an integral part of successfully managing lupus. Medscape, in partnership with the Lupus Foundation of America, offers several continuing medical education programs designed to develop or increase the knowledge, skills, and professional performance of health care providers who treat patients who have SLE. These programs are supported by an independent educational grant from GlaxoSmithKline. (This module has expired for credit.)

Learn more about the programs