Does anyone LOVE Geriatrics?

Published

So I am in LPN school and work as a Care Manager (fancy term as a CNA/Home Health Aide) in an assisted living place and I adore it!!!! I look foward to going to work each day and smile though every shift. I have been doing this for years and love it. When people ask me what field of nursing I want to go into I say LTC or Assisted Living and they look at me like I have two heads!!!!!

Is that really that weird?? Yes, I know I won't get to use as many "technical" skills but I love hearing the stories, making the residents smile and being there because quite frankly some of them haven't seen their family in years and you are the only one who are there for them. And isn't nursing about caring?

Oh and I float to dementia too and I LOVE it!

Does anyone else feel that way? Do you think I am crazy?

Also, Will I be doing much Bedside care as an LPN or will it be up to the CNAs? If i want to be doing much care what is better AL or LTC??

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I LOVE Geri care too. They are my FAVORITE population. Their stories.. oh their stories are amazing. I always ask them their secret for a long-lasting marriage! I do NOT think you are crazy-you have a calling! Best of luck to you.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTC, Rehab.

My from one LTC lover to another you are not alone. I too love the geriatric popoulation. I recently just got hired for a new job in a LTC facility. I ike you will be soon am an LPN. I also worked as a CNA for many years before going to LPN school.

At my old facility I really enjoyed the residents on my assignment. I became family to some of them who did have many visitors or family to speak of. One of the dementia residents thought I was her granddaughter and insisited that I call her grandma, which at that facility was a big no no. But her daughter and I had an excellent rapport with one another. I was the only LPN that her mother would take meds for and listen to, so she had it care planned that I was to call her mother grandma instead of her name. Grandma was favorite resident ever. When she passed away her family thanked me in her obituary.

In LTC care you have the ability forge some very special bonds with your residents. Some of which you will remember for ever. I like you always saw myself working LTC when I was in nursing school and I got those odd looks as well. LTC is not for everyone, I once had a DON tell me that it takes a special kind of person/nurse to do LTC. You are may not use the variety of skills that you would say in a hospital setting but you get a good at what you do! You will become very knowledgable on disease processes that effect many of the elderly. Sadly we as Americans don't value the elderly as highly as some other cultures do. If you take the time to listen and pay attention you might be suprised of what you can learn from some of the elderly population. Good Luck with your nursing career!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTC.

I loved geriatrics. I love the elderly. While geriatrics is not my niche I did grow fond of the residents. I still do geriatrics from time to time. You are not weird at all.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTC currently.

I love the geriatric population as well. At some point when I finish school, i want to make it the primary focus of my career, but I do want to have critical care experience as well.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTC, Psych, Hospice.

Another geriatric lover here! I've worked in LTC and hospice. I'm now seeing hospice pt in an LTC. Love my job and love my pts. I'm working on my BSN now and plan to stay in hospice. My niece works in NICU and makes mega bucks, but it's not for me.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Critical Care.

I'm so glad to here that. That is wonderful. I do love the sweet little old ladies and men. I always ask them there secret to old age. I loved my grandma deeply and was closer to her than anyone else.

But I do have trouble with the violent, angry dementia patients and its a struggle to take care of them. Pleasantly confused is ok, but when they start getting mean and violent, I just want to escape. I feel that way with all patients young or old. I can't stand working with mean, angry and potentially violent ones, and we are exposed to a lot of that on the job.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Geriatrics, LTC.
I love the geriatric population as well. At some point when I finish school, i want to make it the primary focus of my career, but I do want to have critical care experience as well.

Many of your critical care patients will involve the geriatric population.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I am gerontology certified and absolutely love working with the elderly population. What I do not like is physicians who treat the elderly like older versions of healthy adults. Like the peds population, geriatric population has its own set of issues and health problems. I can't tell you how many times I have had to call a doc to confirm the dosage for a frail elderly pt who was ordered the regular dosage not the geriatric dose.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Geriatrics, LTC.
Another geriatric lover here! I've worked in LTC and hospice. I'm now seeing hospice pt in an LTC. Love my job and love my pts. I'm working on my BSN now and plan to stay in hospice. My niece works in NICU and makes mega bucks, but it's not for me.

I love babies, but they're so fragile...so many things could go wrong with such tiny lives. It's not for me, either.

I love geriatrics, too. I someday hope to work in hospice and psych (geri is a special interest of mine); my community nursing clinical was hospice-based and I absolutely loved it. I took care of mostly patients in LTC settings with my preceptor. The hospice nurses who come into my LTC workplace are all wonderful too.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in geriatrics.

I love my seniors too. They are very sweet and funny. It's easy to become attached to them. I will probably work with geriatric patients for the rest of my nursing career. I would rather work with seniors than in peds or with babies any day.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, Intermediate Care, Progressive Care.

My mother's worked with Geriatrics for about 20 years now and she really enjoys them, but I was relieved to get out of my nursing home clinical rotation last semester. Yes, I got fond of the nice little old ladies and little old men, and I always checked in on patients I knew just to say hi, etc.

But I think I've been forever traumatized by my very first clinical patient, who had dementia and yelled at me and kicked me out when I went to take her vitals first thing in the morning. :crying2: I was in tears, and on the very first day! Patients with dementia and confusion who are angry/combative make me a nervous wreck. I suspect I won't like a lot of psych patients for the same sort of reason... We'll see.

I'm very glad to hear that there are people going into nursing like the OP who really WANT to work with the geriatric population. :yeah: They deserve nurses who really want to do the best to treat them as individuals, and give them the care and support that they need, especially when so many residents' families don't ever come to visit, etc. They deserve nurses like the OP who love working with them, because they do present a unique set of challenges and a nurse who doesn't like "old people" will be more inclined to abuse/neglect, or to simply doing the bare minimum of care for them.

With that said, it's definitely not for me! :lol2:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion