I think there is a handful of special nurses who truly feel called to geriatric nursing and I am not one of them. I was excited to be done with this clinical, but surprised myself with how sad I felt leaving my residents. Most of them are very dependent on the CNAs for all their daily activities and due to problems in the entire system (money, cost, time, people, etc.), they're basically just left alone all the time. Say each CNA has 8 residents at a time. On an 8 hour shift, the aid would average 1 hour with each resident. In a 24 hour day, each resident would only have 3 total hours of help from a CNA. Imagine being completely dependent on someone for everything: to stand up, to go to the bathroom, to push your wheelchair, to eat, and you only had that person there 3 hours everyday. It leads to isolation and depression which just exacerbates existing health issues. For this clinical, I didn't really feel like I did much physical 'nursing', just assessments and keeping the residents company. I felt like I made the biggest difference just sitting and holding old ladies' hands. But this extra time with each resident is only possible when you have a group of 10 students dropped off at your facility on top of your paid CNAs, RNs and admins. But if I was actually a nurse or CNA working at the facility, I would never have time to sit with a resident and talk to them about anything. It's not about finding more caring RNs and CNAs: its about fixing a system and finding or making more resources.
Anyway, this week felt like a milestone: finishing our first clinical with our med-surg clinical on the horizon. I'm pretty excited to get into the hospital next quarter and see new things.
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| Most important decision of the day: which donut to eat |
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| Before I got into nursing school, I'd always see these pictures of groups of girls in scrubs who were in nursing school and I thought they were the coolest. This is one of those pictures, but I don't feel as cool as I imagined those girls were... |
Your picture is like a diversity ad for nursing. Look at all those minorities and those two dudes! Boys and minorities can be nurses too! Well, you do look adorable in your SU scrubs.
ReplyDeleteThe healthcare system and the education system seem to have very similar issues. Best case scenario is always so far from the truth. Too little time for too much to do. Usually the ones receiving the service are the ones that lose. And, if you find a way to 'make it work' the budgeters find a way to cut more funding b/c 'so and so' can do it on a tiny budget. It just means you're not working efficiently enough right?!
Hmm. It would be nice to put our time and money where it really counts and actually fix the system. It seems futile to work in a broken system but maybe someone can change that someday. Now, I'm thinking.
Yes! Can I just copy your paragraph and spread it to all to read??!
DeleteWe were learning in class about a retirement community with a low accident rate who had a third party auditor came in to see how they could cut costs. The auditor determined that the facility was overstaffed and recommended cutting staff, but an executive of the facility said no, because he/she recognized that more eyes and bodies meant less falls and med errors and all sorts of mistakes. Good for them, but more often than not, this is unfortunately not what happens.
Of course you can. Do you mean the part of the minorities and dudes? :)
DeleteI'm glad that there are some good people that see the challenges. I wish that the higher ups (for me that's the principals) didn't forget what it is like to be a classroom teacher so soon. Remember how you are in charge of 30 young bodies that need every second of your attention and can turn their attitude on a dime if you for one second don't give them the fullest attention?! Yea, I wish teenagers were less troubled but I guess the world would miss out on its angsty music.