aging nurse population | JParadisi RN's Blog

This week I got a flu shot, free of charge from the hospital. I bared my deltoid muscle, allowing a nursing student to practice her immunization and injection skills. She did a pretty good job. It barely hurt. Those are penguins on the adhesive strip she covered the tiny bead of blood from the needle prick with, in the photo to the right.

Flu shot? Yes. Check that box

I hardly thought twice about getting a flu shot this year, which hasn’t always been the case. In fact, in the past I opposed mandatory flu shots for nurses; arguing against someone else making rules about my body. While I was never threatened with job termination for refusing flu shots, some hospitals did make nurses refusing them uncomfortable with policies mandating they wear respiratory masks in patient care areas during flu season, or producing notes from their primary care provider explaining the nurse’s choice to avoid it; stuff like that.

What changed my mind about flu shots? I don’t know it has actually changed. What’s changed is my attitude: I don’t feel it’s worth the fuss anymore. It’s not a battle I choose to fight. I don’t know if this is a sign of maturity, or aging, but it’s lost its importance in the greater scheme of my life.

This year, and the last, I got a flu shot, and then I went back to work.

What about you? Are flu shots still a hot topic for nurses like they were in 2009, during the height of the H1N1 virus epidemic?

Study Detail/artist: JParadisi (2009)

My patient was watching The Beverly Hillbillies on TV while I set up the supplies needed to start her IV. I stopped what I was doing when she said, “What is this show? Is it a movie? What’s the name of this show?”

“How young are you?”, I asked, gesturing towards the TV. “That’s The Beverly Hillbillies. You know how people say, What a Jethro? Well, that’s Jethro. He’s always coming up with good ideas that don’t actually work.”

I’m not all that old myself. The Beverly Hillbillies was already in syndicated reruns when I was in elementary school. However, I meet the over 40 criteria which the Age Discrimination and Employment Act uses to identify “older” employees.

I read an article on Medscape, Retaining an Aging Nurse Workforce: Perception of Human Resources Practices, written by Mary Val Palumbo, Barbara McIntosh, Betty Rambur, and Shelly Naud. The paper explains that a majority of employed nurses are over 45, and Human Resources departments worldwide are looking for ways to increase retention of nurses into their 60’s.

According to studies, nurses want three things from the organizations they work for:

Recognition and Respect
Having a Voice
Receiving Feedback

Really? That’s what nurses in studies say they want? Really?

Listening to my colleagues discuss what they want, increased healthcare benefits, increased reimbursement for educational conferences, pay increases for career related achievements such as advanced degrees and certifications, are examples of what nurses want. I think this falls under Recognition.

Nurses universally complain about missing scheduled breaks because of too heavy patient assignments, and uninterrupted lunch breaks are considered a luxury by most of us. Some department managers even post important notices such as changes in policy on the staff bathroom walls, to read during our “bathroom breaks”. Fortunately, the walls of the staff bathroom where I work are free of required reading. This probably falls under the Respect category.

Coincidentally, I attended a Human Resources customer service presentation. A Power Point slide projected a scripted phrase to ask the patient (customer): “Is there is anything else I can do for you? I have the time.” The HR representative emphasized that studies show the phrase “I have the time” is a crucial part of the customer service interaction, and we were urged to say it. I raised my hand: “I’m playing devil’s advocate here: if the phrase is of such importance, then shouldn’t staff be provided with the necessary resources ( i.e. time = staffing) to say it truthfully?”