Methods: Survey students regarding their perceptions of geriatric healthcare at the start of nursing and upon graduation and look for change in this perception by graduation. This change can be made by educating students throughout the curriculum about the geriatric population. While it is important to have a course tailored to this specific topic, it is also important to have this added to each course throughout a program. When discussing a certain disease process, discuss how it differs in a geriatric client or how treatment options may vary. Currently the aging population is taught in an online course at many schools. Even though we are making great innovations in online teaching, this type of course does not typically allow for as involved conversations and may leave the student to doing the bare minimal to get by with the needed grade. Having the care of elderly incorporated across the curriculum will allow for more exposure to the topic and keep the conversation going.
Students need to have interactions with the geriatric population outside of the classroom. Finding clinical opportunities for students to work with geriatric patients both in an acute care setting as well as home or long term setting can open the student’s eyes to the possibilities that go along with geriatric nursing. For example, a student that presents as a good leader and is looking for autonomy in their profession may benefit from being introduced to a long term care facility or assisted living environment since the RN is in a leadership role in these areas. Students would also benefit from seeing patients in the home environment or community setting. Being able to see that the geriatric population is still a functional group in society and have a lot to offer rather than the perception that all geriatric patients are confused and incontinent. There is also a need to make students more comfortable with the concept of death as that is another barrier to this specialty. Nurses are built to fix the patient’s problems, but should be taught that it is okay to let a person go.
Results: This is new research to promote a curriculum change with more of a positive geriatric focus. My hope is to change the interest in geriatric nursing by introducing it sooner to nursing students as a specialty and allowing for positive clinical experiences to enhance the desire to go into geriatrics upon graduation.
Conclusion: As a nurse who started out with the desire to do pediatrics, I am now specialized in geriatrics. On the first day of each semester I ask the new nursing students to raise their hand if they want to do pediatrics, labor and delivery, and critical care. There might be five students that don’t raise their hands to those three specialties and even then, no one is interested in med/surg or geriatrics. The perception of the geriatric population must be improved as this age group is rapidly growing in numbers. It can be a rewarding career choice for any nurse and by encouraging more new graduates to move into this specialty, they can make a big impact on the quality of care the baby boomer generation receives.