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Project director Kathleen Blais, EdD, RN reports that the
Hartford project began with the goal of integrating gerontology
throughout the curriculum. However, after recruiting Mary
Naylor, PhD, RN, FAAN from The University of Pennsylvania
Center for Geriatric Nursing Excellence to conduct a faculty
workshop, Dr. Blais recognized the wisdom in integrating gerontology
content throughout the curriculum and creating a stand-alone
gerontology course. To strengthen her argument, she presented
faculty with community demographics, conducted a curriculum
mapping exercise, engineered additional workshops and seminars,
organized consultant visits, and connected with a parallel
JAHF initiative.
The awarding of the JAHF grant funding coincided with a major
revision of the nursing school's entire curriculum. Dr. Blais
contends that "the project encouraged faculty to include
more geriatric content in their courses, even faculty who
teach pediatrics and obstetrics, who previously had not considered
adding geriatric content." Now all courses have specific
gerontology objectives, i.e. pharmacology course objective
specifies awareness of medications that are contraindicated
for the older adult. The grant's timing became a major stimulus
"to do it right and get it done."
Dr. Blais reports that Dr. Naylor influenced her to have
an "Aha!" moment--with free standing maternity and
pediatric courses, why not create one for the elderly? The
obstetrics and pediatric curricula identify their specific
populations "as different from…" Such curricular
distinction would surely benefit the elderly population. By
taking gerontology stand-alone courses, new students and practicing
RN's (who most probably had little focused gerontology content
in nursing school) become aware of "gerontology as different
from." For instance, they learn that they must never
accept their elderly patient's confusion as normal--they must
determine that it is irreversible, requiring maintenance and
support, or that it is treatable, requiring intervention that
improves quality of life.
Thus inspired, Dr. Blais recommended that this new curriculum
host the JAHF sponsored stand-alone course, Nursing Care
of Older Adults. It began as an elective, but as Dr. Blais
points out, "basic nursing has little room for electives
now." For the 2005-2006 school year, it will be offered
for the first time as a required web-assisted final semester
synthesis course, addressing the complexities of older adult
health care needs.
Given the course's focus on culturally competent nursing
care of the older adult, instructor Yvonne Parchment, EdD,
MSN, ARNP,CS brings with her a great deal of experience working
with older adults, especially African Americans and Caribbeans.
She reports that the university's student community hosts
large numbers of immigrants who in general, have no connections
to their distant parents and grandparents, and therefore experience
few positive experiences with older adults. This course exposes
students to the well elderly, and slowly changes their attitudes
for the better.
To encourage this shift in attitude, Dr. Parchment uses Palmore's
Facts on Aging Quiz at the course's beginning and
end, as well as two interactive aging simulation games: Walk
in My Shoes and Into
Aging. She notices a marked improvement in student
attitude, which has clearly taken place through the course
of the semester.
Florida International University's School of Nursing emerges
as a clear leader in gerontological curricular innovation.
Dr. Blais led the crusade by engineering inventive faculty
development activities, including exercises that employed
use of her unique curriculum mapping tool. Her school's grant
experience exemplifies the importance of coupling creation
of gerontology stand-alone courses with full curricular infusion.
Schools of nursing, contemplating gerontological curricular
change, would be well served by following FIU's fine example.
Course
Syllabus
Curriculum Mapping Tool
Student
Works
Lessons
Learned/Advice to Schools
Principal Investigators Contact Information:
Kathy Blais, EdD, RN
Florida International University
School of Nursing
HLS II, Room 472
Miami, Florida 33199
blaisk@fiu
305-348-7712
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