Comments on: Not Enough Nurses Prepared to Care for Those Older Than 65 /not-enough-nurses-prepared-to-care-for-americas-65/ Future of Nursing Tue, 04 Oct 2016 20:44:48 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.0.10 By: MCounihan /not-enough-nurses-prepared-to-care-for-americas-65/#comment-96 Fri, 30 Sep 2016 19:53:00 +0000 /?p=9981#comment-96 The leading edge of the baby boomer population has reached the age of 65. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, every day between now and 2030, some 10,000 Americans will turn 65. Come 2030, almost 20% of the American population will be considered in old age. Will there be enough nurses and other medical professionals to care for this segment of the population? Right now it doesn’t look good. Unfortunately this means that many older Americans will most likely not get the best possible care when the need arises. As a current nursing student, I’ve only encountered one classmate who wants to start a career in geriatric nursing. The general consensus among the student body is that geriatric nursing is just not exciting. There is a certain stigma associated to geriatric nursing that it is only for less qualified/trained nurses who were not able to excel in other more demanding nursing areas. Not much in my program tries to convince students otherwise. In fact, we have clinical rotations that take us to different areas of a hospital: med/surg, pediatrics, OB, psych, etc, however at no point do we have a clinical devoted to working with geriatric patients. It’s interesting that so many nursing programs sped so much time on things like OB and pediatrics, given the changing demographics of the US. According to the American Geriatric Society, fewer than 1% of RNs are certified in geriatrics. So what do we do to fill this gap? I agree with the author that training nurses in settings where older adults receive care as well as creating financial incentives for nurses who go into geriatrics is a great starting point. It would be easy for schools to arrange a clinical rotation in nursing homes or senior rehabilitation centers. Increasing pay or offering loan forgiveness would certainly increase new and seasoned nurses to consider a career in geriatrics. Another suggestion from an Institute of Medicine report suggests a call for greater interdisciplinary collaboration among health care providers and laws that would support nurses’ ability to practice to the full extent of their training and capabilities, which would help curb looming nurse shortages. The final answer will surely be multifaceted. The sooner we address the problem, the sooner we’ll be able to fill the nursing gap for a demographic in need.

References:
United States in Search of Nurses with Geriatrics Training. (2012, February 27). Retrieved September 28, 2016, from http://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and-news/2012/02/united-states-in-search-of-nurses-with-geriatrics-training.html

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