Dr. Jean Lange, principal investigator at
Fairfield University's School of Nursing, reports that
her school became a recipient of the John A. Hartford
Foundation funding while in the process of launching a
new curriculum, and the timing couldn't have been better.
The grant enabled her faculty to fully infuse gerontology
content into all courses, and by so doing, they became
inspired to also develop this stand-alone course. They
determined that both full integration of gerontology content
and development of a stand-alone geriatric nursing course
are crucially important to a baccalaureate curriculum.
After all, infusion alone does not provide opportunity
to develop a unique gerontology nursing knowledge base.
Dr. Lange, recognizing the vital role a
gerontology champion plays in the curriculum revamping
process, brought on board Meredith Wallace, PhD, APRN,
who teaches this course with an unbridled passion for
gerontology nursing. Dr. Lange, knowing that several minds
working together create a richer product than otherwise,
involved her whole faculty in the gerontology integration
process. She also formed a geriatric advisory board that
offered ongoing consultation and developed innovative
gerontology partnerships that span all levels of care
and socioeconomic groups.
Their new curriculum included in its first
year a senior level community gerontology course. However,
after attendance at a faculty development workshop and
completion of curriculum mapping, this faculty saw the
wisdom in offering a concentrated gerontology focus earlier
in the curriculum. They learned that by providing content
up front, the course lays out material that can be built
upon throughout the curriculum. This two-credit-theory/one-credit-clinical
course is now offered in the spring of sophomore year,
right after students have taken both an introduction to
nursing and a health assessment course. As their first
foray into clinical, this course gives them a chance to
apply this new learning in the long term care setting.
The course is currently being taught for
the third time to a student body of 67, having grown from
50 at its first offering. Dr. Wallace tends to maximize
their classroom learning by dividing her students into
small groups for interactive discussions and hands-on
experiences, i.e. sensory deprivation exercises. Their
clinical rotations begin with heavy ADL experience, and
progress to health assessments, and finally to care plans
with best practice foci. Dr. Wallace uses the Kogan's
Attitude Scale to evaluate student attitudes about
the elderly, both pre and post semester.
She and her colleagues hope to create a
generation of students who question traditional practices
with older adults, the "what can we do instead?"
generation. She used her own pet peeves, overuse of restraints
and foley catheters in the elderly, to demonstrate the
need for nurses to be critical thinkers, always considering
the most humane options for elderly patient care.
Drs. Lange and Wallace share a vision--for
Fairfield to become a model school in gerontology nursing
for non-research intensive baccalaureate nursing programs.
Although Fairfield University, like most colleges and
universities with baccalaureate nursing programs, is not
a Carnegie I institution, its faculty are actively engaged
in research and grant writing. Drs. Lange and Wallace
hope to inspire other nursing programs with similar goals,
Drs. Lange and Wallace hope to lead the charge to put
high-standard baccalaureate level gerontology nursing
education on the map.
