Ageism in Nursing: A Pervasive Problem

As the nursing workforce continues to age, it is imperative that age discrimination becomes a relic of the past. We must retain our older and most expert nurses. Their skills and contributions should be valued and celebrated. Nurses Relations Article

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HerbalGypsy

28 Posts

Specializes in Oncology.

Thought provoking article and comments. I have been a nurse for 7 years but I am an older nurse having passed my boards at the age of 55 with and ADN. I am currently in school for my BSN and fairly proficient with technology. I love working with the new graduates who enter the field with enthusiasm and energy. What I am finding is that trying to find a less physically demanding job (9-5 clinic type instead of 12 hour floor shifts) is not happening. There is always a more qualified (younger) applicant. What has happened is that the younger nurse then leaves in less than a year to marry, have children, travel, etc. With the economy the way it is, I see my self working for at least another 5 years and if I can sustain the pace I will stay where I am! I do love sharing what I know on the medical oncology unit I am on and I also love the patients. JZ, I am with you on trying to save the essence of Nursing. We can work where we are and hold on to the light of the lamp;-)

VictoriaGayle

139 Posts

Why can what is written in the article not be construed as ageism? A highly trained, experienced, older nurse was written up for petty things and micromanaged, while the younger nurses she works with were not subjected to this treatment. The nurse was then suspended and fired. Surely it's not unreasonable to think ageism is happening. The nurse certainly appears to have been discriminated against.

My personal thoughts are that probably the older, highly trained, experienced nurse's

medical insurance, worker's comp insurance, and other benefits were costing her employer more than they were willing to pay. Unless I am mistaken, her employer would have to pay more for these things for an older nurse versus a younger nurse.

It is very sad, in my opinion, that one's years of service, loyalty, clinical experience and expertise, often appear to mean next to nothing to an employer.

The author did well to point out that age discrimination is prohibited, and that there are avenues of recourse. I think that if I was in the above situation, once I recognized I was being subjected to a discriminatory pattern of behavior from my employer, I would probably want to consult with a lawyer who specialized in these kind of situations. And I would do it early on, after the first few occurrences. I would also keep notes for myself of when I was written up, the circumstances, and the date and time, and anything else I felt was pertinent. Mary took no action in her defence that we know of.

I was actually refering to someones comment about senority and saying that was ageism.

Sorry, I thought I had quoted the post I was responding to.

I agree with this article, but at the same time I wish ageism towards younger workers was more aknowledged.

Sadly its not, probably because new worker want to complain about senority and call it ageism.

I have been treated poorly at work for being young (no one had a problem with me when they thought I was in my twenties). My fiance has faced much worse, though. He is the youngest employee in his entire company at 19. He works hard and tries to learn as much as he can. One time he was working as a temporary crew leader, meaning he had to supervise men in their 30's. I could understand them being upset if they had put their time in as well, but these were new hires with no relevant experience in the industry, who proceded to swear at him and tell him that they didn't have to take orders from a kid.

marymary

84 Posts

I work in a small psych hospital on the east coast and have not seen the negativity toward older nurses in the workforce. In fact as long as you do your share of the workload there are no issues toward anyone. I see a different side of some, (not all) of the older nurses.

They are resistant to change, have a tendency to delegate more of their workload to ancillary staff and have a judgmental attitude toward the patients. I will give an example.One shift, an LPN was working with the two RNs on this articular unit... the LPN was the medication nurse. Instead of assessing a physically ill patient , the RN delegated the LPN to assess the patient and report her findings back to her.

The RN never looked at the patient. Yet she reported the findings in her am report as if she did. This is not an isolated incident. The RNs spend most of their evening sitting down delegating from the desk , both have seniority.

Specializes in Pediatrics Telemetry CCU ICU.

I wonder why "Mary" did not go to the EEOC and the Human Relations Commission in her state and talk to an investigator. I did, way back in 1993. They talked to me right away. I experienced "ageism" when i was a younger nurse and just had my first child. It's a long story and not worth writing about but there was a change over of ownership of the nursing home I was working for. Right away, we all had the idea that what we were getting paid was not what this company wanted to pay nurses. Write-ups and being "let go" became the norm. The new nurse manager happened to come by one day and was speaking to a new nurse that they had hired (at a lower rate, I'm sure) and mentioned "a young nurse with children will have trouble working here." I noted the time, date and person who said it. When my time came to be "let go" (by that time 3/4 of the nursing staff had been replaced), I made my call to my state's Human Relations Commission. What infuriated me the most was that they were also refusing to pay me unemployment (they knew full well that what I was "let go" for had nothing to do with willful misconduct..so it also made me mad that they insulted my intelligence on that too). The investigator was VERY interested. She told me to hold tight and challenge the unemployment issue too. I also told her some other things that were happening there that was not legal..like making the staff come in 15 minutes early for report but not allowing them to punch in and get paid for it. Within a week, I received a phone call from the investigator, not only did her office go in unannounced, but she brought along the EEOC representative, a representative from the State Board of Nursing, a representative from the Wage and Hour Board...etc. There were about 6 entities in all. They pulled all kinds of records and also did an official Nursing Home Inspection. I have absolutely no clout with these people, I was just a squeaky wheel. I was absolutely p*ssed and someone was going to listen to me. I told her that it had nothing to do with money, it had everything to do with principle. What happened? They have a strike against them, they had to pay restitution to every employee past and present the 15 minutes of overtime they illegally imposed. They had to pay hefty fines and they gave me a $000,000 (undisclosed) settlement. It set precedence without a court hearing. I have no problem ever doing it again. The law is the law.

Specializes in MICU/CCU, SD, home health, neo, travel.

I was a second career nurse who went back to school when my youngest started preschool. I never encountered ageism until I moved to where I live now. My previous job was in a large city where I had worked an assignment as a traveler and liked the ambience. I got the position via a recruiting agency, was actually offered two different positions in that hospital (should have accepted the other one, but never mind) and was hired immediately. I would have stayed there but for being offered a wonderful position (having nothing to do with nursing) by The Man :) . When I got up here I applied for numerous jobs but it seemed that they would all prefer younger, newer nurses that they could pay less (pay was real sticking point, apparently). I went to one interview where the DON who interviewed me was younger than my youngest child and seemed perplexed at what to ask me! I was considering whether to start traveling again when my appendix exploded and I had an emergency appy. Three months later I developed a condition requiring three major surgeries and one slightly less major one over the course of 9 months, which I came to believe was a signal that I should consider myself retired. I still maintain my license and do some volunteer work, but that's it. I am mildly bitter about the ageism I was shown, but I've concluded that everything happened for a reason. I am now in my third career as a jewelry designer.

Specializes in Family Practice, Med-Surg.

Ageism? I think it depends on your point of view. I left hospital nursing in 1994 when I decided I could no longer provide safe nursing care with the current staffing levels at my hospital. I became a Family Nurse Practitioner, so I could see my patients one at a time. I was in a practice I loved, but left in 2014 after 17.5 years because corporate medicine got to be too much for me. I thought I was continually exhausted due to my age, but several doctors followed me out the door. I now work per diem doing online convenience care. I work from home and work when I want to. I was recently offered a part time job out of the blue, which I accepted, will work one day a week in a psychology practice prescribing antidepressants and anxiolytics. This is something I became very good at in primary care. I am a recent widow and need to cobble together an income for 3 more years until I can collect social security at age 66. My point is that I think ageism exists, but... I don't think anyone in any profession should expect to do the same thing for the same employer for years and years. I think it's important to prepare for changes in your career. When I graduated with my BSN 40 years ago, I never in my wildest dreams imagined what I am doing now as an NP.

AnnoyedNurse

63 Posts

VickyRN - I think your mentality is skewed. There is more discrimination and negative attitude in the workplace against younger nurses than senior nurses. I have witnessed older nurses gossip and question the competence of new nurses many times. I think your comment about seniority is important. Yes, they have earned the right to have some leniency is scheduling, however, that does not make it appropriate to treat new nurses as slaves or at the bottom of the barrel. Just because someone is new does not mean they are incompetent or should be treated any differently.

Quite frankly, in my opinion, seniority rules is organized discrimination against young people. Nursing is not a trade- it's a profession- all members of the team should have the same scheduling requirements including senior nurses. I've worked for a magnet Level 1 Trauma Center where meritocracy ruled and the culture was amazing. I currently work for a union hospital, where seniority rules, and the culture can be somewhat pervasive and against the standards of professionalism.

I have witnessed senior nurses bully new nurses for whtever reason they wanted. I have witnessed younger nurses quit because of maltreatment bynew nurses. Rarely have I seen older nurses being bullied. Quite frankly, we are the future of nursing and the belief system of seniority rules will be retiring soon as well.

We are professionals and we should act like professionals and not expect speciality treatment just because we are older. That is a sense of entitlement more than a new nurses expecting to be treated with decency and respect.

RN35yr

1 Post

Part of ageism is associated with lack of the right letters behind your name. I have 35 years of experience, some as a manager, yet when new administration took over I was no longer qualified to "manage" due to "only" having a diploma in nursing. By requiring ALL nurses to become BSN we are slowiy but surely losing our good bedside critical thinking nurses, who are off to be mid-levels.

nursemaryzzel

27 Posts

Never in my entire career have I seen older nurses discriminated against in any way, shape, or, form. Seniority means a lot at least in a hospital setting. Sorry, I just don't see the problem from the older nurses' perspective. Even if there is an issue in some hospitals, it's nowhere near as widespread as the OLDER nurses "eating their young" and bullying the younger nurses simply because they are more green and inexperienced. I don't mean this to be a hasty generalization, but most of the older nurses I work with have a superiority complex and believe they deserve more respect from other nurses (or even NMs) who are younger than them just because they are older and have more experience. Ageism in nursing is definitely a top to bottom thing, at least in my neck of the woods.