Does anyone LOVE Geriatrics?

[geekchic]

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??

[Merced]

I love old people, & when I got my BSN, I did my preceptorship in gerontology, anticipating becoming a Home Health Case Manager.

I think it grew from my deep love of my grandma, the joy she gave me, & the fact that she valued me so highly.

Soul-enriching.

[joanna73, BSN, RN]

You get attached to them. And when they're no longer with us, you miss them. One of my favourite residents died recently. I cried for a week.

I could work with the elderly for the rest of my nursing career. In fact, I recently obtained certification in geriatrics :)

[itthybitthythpider]

There are some things I enjoy, and some I don't. I love the cranky old people, but I hate working the cart. I don't mind the patients dying, because by the time they get to that point, most of them are ready to go. I have trouble with the families left behind.

I couldn't do peds. I did my peds rotation in a pediatric burn unit, and that almost made me sick to my stomach @.@

[Merced]

No peds for me either; same reason. I admire Pediatric Nurses so much. What strength & skill & equanimity they have, & how they enrich the world.

[mrs tink rn]

I absolutely love elder care. I have worked in long term care first for a little less than a year as an LPN and for the last 3 months as an RN and I truly love the relationships I have been able to develop with my residents. I wish there were more nurses in LTC that truly like what they are doing. ( I also wish the nurses that are in LTC but don't like it would move on to a field of nursing they do like)

[mrs tink rn]

I read my previous post and think maybe I need to clarify. The nurses I wish would move on are those that don't like geriatrics. In my state....Delaware...hospitals are getting rid of LPNs. I think we have nurses in my nursing home that are there simply because they have no where else to go.