Dec. 19, 2024
Rethinking Nursing Home Care, Together
The Schools of Public Health and Nursing engage students with “teaching nursing homes.”
TOPICS: Education | School of Nursing | School of Public Health
Look to the Stars
By Michele Dula Baum and Clare Collins
A decade ago, Taylor McMahon planned to pursue a career in emergency medical care yet took a position in long-term care to gain experience. Then she fell in love with working with older adults. She’s now director of nursing at Presbyterian SeniorCare Network.
“This work is truly nurse-driven and involves critical thinking and a lot of autonomy,” says McMahon. “I can see the impact of my work improving the quality of life for these folks.”
Yet, sometimes nursing students need a nudge to become aware of the rewards of geriatric nursing. “In the past, there has been a preference for acute care clinical placements over nursing home clinical placements by both faculty and students,” says Elizabeth Schlenk, former associate dean for graduate clinical education and associate professor emeritus of health and community systems at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. “Often students want the intensive care units, maternity or pediatrics.”
In July 2021, with foundation and community partners, notably the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and the John A. Hartford Foundation, Pitt’s Schools of Nursing and of Public Health revamped a “teaching nursing home” initiative (a concept from the ’80s then advanced by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation).
The initiative was officially named the Pennsylvania Teaching Nursing Home Collaborative, growing to 20 schools of nursing and 40 nursing homes across the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The goal is to expand nationwide.
Madeline Richardson
Howard Degenholtz, professor of health policy and management at Pitt Public Health, says, “When the pandemic exposed our inadequacies in caring for elderly residents in long-term care, we said, ‘let’s dust off this idea [of the teaching nursing home]’ and see what can be learned from the past and really think about what we can do today to engage schools of nursing as well as nursing homes.”
Schlenk says the three-year pilot “has really shown us that by introducing nursing students to geriatric nursing, we can break the stigma of working in a nursing home, and now we have true champions for working in long-term care facilities.”
After the successful conclusion of the pilot, the initiative was officially named the Pennsylvania Teaching Nursing Home Collaborative, growing to 20 schools of nursing and 40 nursing homes across the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The goal is to expand nationwide.
Today, McMahon helps nursing students recognize the intellectual challenges that come from working in long-term care when she presents at orientation programs at the School of Nursing. “It is really about looking at what matters to each individual older adult that we care for,” says McMahon.
McMahon is happy to play her part in encouraging the next generation of nurses to consider her field: “Working with the elderly has changed my life personally and professionally and just made me a better person.”