What are we teaching students about older people’s nursing?
When students reported back on an older people’s nursing placement they valued the learning, but none planned to choose gerontological nursing on registration. The nursing profession needs to consistently present caring for older people as skilled, complex and central to practice to make it attractive as a specialty
Caring for older people is skilled, complex and central to practice, but few students, even after successful placements, choose gerontological nursing on registration
Nursing education often assumes that if students experience a positive placement with older people, they will consider a career in the specialty. Our evidence & practice article, Cultivating interest in gerontological nursing among nursing students: evaluation of an educational initiative, challenges that assumption. Students valued the learning, reported a greater appreciation of the complexity of caring for older adults and recognised the skills involved. Yet none planned to choose gerontological nursing on registration.
‘When older people’s care is perceived as less prestigious or stimulating than acute or other specialist areas, a powerful hidden curriculum is created’
This is not a failure of the placement. Instead, it highlights how professional identity is formed. Education changed students’ views of older people, but it did not change how they perceived the status of the work.
Students learn as much from what they hear in clinical areas as from what they are taught formally. When older people’s care is perceived as less prestigious or stimulating than acute or other specialist areas, a powerful hidden curriculum is created. It becomes possible for students to respect gerontological nursing yet still not choose it.
Students are influenced by role models and how nurses talk about their work
Registered nurses in social care support people living with complex multimorbidity, frailty, dementia, palliative and end of life care needs, often making autonomous clinical decisions. However, this expertise is less visible than acute procedural skills and can therefore appear less valued.
Placements in social care remain important, but exposure alone cannot change perceptions. Students are influenced by role models and by how nurses talk about their own work and the work of colleagues. Each time older people’s nursing is minimised, the profession unintentionally narrows its future workforce.
Encouraging students to choose this specialty will not be achieved solely through additional teaching or placements. It will happen when nursing consistently presents caring for older people as skilled, complex and central to practice.
The question for all of us is simple: when students are listening, how do we talk about older people’s nursing?
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