Did your school discriminate against the elderly? read to find out...

[LPNweezy]

My school discriminated the elderly big time. and in the most subtle way, too. Heres how:

I called them the "fall backs". When i first entered my school, they trained us the basics, and we were only allowed to work around and with geriatric people. Pediatrics, younger adults, and teenagers were totally off-limits. For my entire first year of nursing school, taking blood pressures, long sounds, assessments, etc. (totally non invasive and non dangerous procedures) were done on geriatric patients. It was only on my second and final year of nursing school that they let us assess young adults (ages 18-55). And peds? we had a rotation, but we weren't allowed to pass meds or anything nurse like. we were CNAs during the peds rotation.

i am having trouble describing this, i'm not too good with words, so let me give another example of my school doing this: the veterinary program lets first year beginner students work with cattle and farm animals. those are the "Fall backs" then the second year, the school lets them work with exotic animals.

They are clearly doing this because they think the elderly will "just die soon anyway" and if a mistake were to happen, its "not that big of a deal with the elderly." A human being is a human being despite age, anyone else find this disgusting? shame on you, school. SHAME :spbox:

[MagsMom]

very interesting perspective, I actually have never thought about it.

[JenniferSews]

My first semester was done in skilled nursing. The patients were less sick and more stable, that was the entire reason they were in that setting. It had nothing to do with age at all. The age of the patient is generally secondary to their illness and comorbidities. Wanting you to start with less acute patients isn't discrimination against them for not being young, it's just practical and safer for everyone involved.

Second semester on was done in a hospital setting and never did the AGE of the patient enter into things. Acuity and complexity of the patient was the main determining factor in whether a particular patient was appropriate for a student nurse. I find it hard to believe that your school specifically refused to assign you patients based solely on their age. Did your instructors on med surg floors really say "you can't care for that patient because they are under 55 years old?" I think you might be missing the bigger picture here.

[glencovediva]

I'm sorry. I don't really understand your post. What are you trying to say?

[shoegazer]

I think LTC is a great place for nursing students to start. As others have mentioned the patients are stable and the environment is not quite as hectic as say a hospital or clinic. Also the LTC patients I worked with as a student volunteered to work with us. And even some that didn't came to the party we had for them. Overall they seemed to enjoy our company.

[LPNweezy]

thanks for all the replies! I just remember asking my teacher as a student "why don't we work with peds?" and she told me that "Parents are protective of their children and they don't like beginning students" This post is about my schools view, not mine. i seriously probably went to a horrible school. and im not comparing the elderly to farm animals i'm comparing the way my school does this. I always had this suspicion about why the beginning students started with the elderly, and the teachers definitely had a "they will die soon anyways" attitude. I don't think anyone else has had this kind of experience.

and i never thought about the stability of it, very very good point! But there was just something about my school and my instructors that i think is still fishy. If we made a small mistake in LTC, the teachers would brush it off, but in Peds or with a younger adult it would be a big deal. For example, if we said something about a procedure that was incorrect. Its our duty as a nurse to give correct education, and the teachers would say "whatever" in LTC, but in peds they would make us look something up in a medical dictionary and go correct it like we should.

i feel like my school had extra precautions for other patients that were not elderly. Any one else go to a school like this?

[Altra, BSN, RN]

As has been noted by several, if not all, other posters ... there is a progression of clinical experiences in nursing education. By the time you got exposure to caring for pediatric patients you had progressed in your clinical experiences to caring for the more acutely ill. The patients' conditions were more acute and so the interventions you were practicing were more critical. The stakes were higher ... if it helps you to think about it that way.

An example from my own student days ... on my very first clinical day at an LTC, it took me an hour to bathe a patient and change her bed linens. An hour! Can you imagine working that into the routine of an acute care unit? Nope ... not happening. Which is why the early experiences in the more controlled setting of an LTC are so valuable.

In addition to hands on skill practice, elderly patients often have multiple chronic comorbidities which mean a wealth of pathophysiology data for students to investigate.

And BTW -- I took care of a 46-year old in the LTC. Not all LTC patients are elderly -- not by a long shot.

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

The progression of your patient load sounds pretty much on par with most other nursing schools. I do think you are completely off base on this.

[SandraCVRN]

and she told me that "Parents are protective of their children and they don't like beginning students"

This is true... Any error on a peds pt can to very dangerous, esp a med error. Not that a med error can't kill an adult but the window for error is much smaller in a peds pt. And usually an inpatient peds patient is very ill.

Not saying you are wrong about the vibes you got from your instructors but I wouldn't want a brand new student taking care of my very sick child.....

[RNperdiem, RN]

My first instructor told us early on: "who is your patient? She is likely to be elderly and female. These people are the bread and butter of our daily care."

[Orange Tree]

The smaller the person, the smaller the margin of error. That's why you're not likely to see students giving meds to pediatric patients and you NEVER see them working in a NICU.

Besides that, most people are comfortable changing a baby's bedding or diaper, but changing a 200 pound adult's bedding and brief are things that most of us don't have much experience with.

[nursel56]

I. . .I am a little disturbed by the fact that you compare our elderly with large farm animals. Not cool.

I guess I'll be the only contrarian but I don't think LPNWeezy was comparing our elderly to large farm animals. I think she was looking for an analogy to clarify the point she was trying to make as evidenced by her saying "I'm not good with words". It just went nursing school-->elderly-->young people and veterinary-->cows/horses-->exotic animals - since she started the thread upset about mistreatment of the elderly I'm sure no such comparison was meant and maybe it meant that both start out with possibly less complex or unstable people/animals and move on from there.

About the elderly being patient and nice - well . . . I thought my first total care patient was patient and nice (she looked that way) My instructor was happy with me! Then as I was about to leave with the glow of success she suddenly grabbed my upper arm in a vice grip and dug all 5 nails in as hard as she could while not changing expression or turning her head. . .freaked me right straight out because it was the last thing I expected to happen! Looks can deceive! To this day I wonder what I may have done to **** her off . . . not really NOW I know-- THEN I did not. Be careful out there!

[netglow, ASN, RN]

Also, at least in my area, LPNs are only seen in nursing homes, and that is even on the rare side these days. Your program could be geared for LTC, which depending on your area hiring practices, might be where the majority of your graduates will have job possibilities (they are not going to tell you that before you sign up for classes). Also, I agree that the majority of your patients almost always will be older patients unless you are in peds. It is of all things, least likely that you will work in peds in your career as the school sees it. These program choices aren't made with you specifically in mind. You are required to receive edu as a generalist and that is all.

Remember we all are subject to media to some extent if we admit it or not. It is rare that you see a bunch of LOLs in the ER on TV. It's all youngish good looking folks, right? Would make a boring show if it were. You can't completely erase your mental images of what nursing would be like because you grew up with this picture in all the info you got. Hospital systems perpetuate this on thier websites and marketing. In my area every nurse is whiter than white, and all american in looks in every commercial/web/brochure out there. Heh. In fact this couldn't be the farthest from the truth.

So, I guess what I am saying is once you look at things with your eyes wide open and acknowledge that what you actually see is what you are going to get ...you're going to want to quit Heh, well, just that there is a lot of BS going around.