Learning to care for older adults in an associate degree nursing program: a discovery process.
The older adult interview assignment becomes a discovery process in which the students realize that the older adult is a person to be cared about. This experience is then transferred to other older adults as worthy of care. In the author's first experience with this assignment, students selected unknown interview candidates from extended care facilities. The students found the experience interesting, but did not necessarily discover that person as a person worthy of care. In this class assignment, the outcome seemed more meaningful to students because of the selection criteria of a known candidate, often a grandparent or relative, or neighbor. Because the elderly candidate already had a relationship with the student, the interview content became a gift and a legacy to the student. Now able to identify with older adults as persons like themselves, the experience of caring was transferred to older adults in clinical settings. Students found that their elderly clients with acute and chronic conditions, as well as those with neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's were also worthy of care. It can then be said that the interview process as a teaching-learning strategy for nursing students not only promotes caring for older adults, but also facilitates the transfer of caring to all older adults in need of nursing care.
White
Isabelle
I
Bethel College, Mishawaka, Indiana, USA. whitei@bethelcollege.edu
Davidhizar
Ruth
R
D000368:Aged; D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005851:Geriatric Nursing / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans