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I find myself to be most comfortable working with older adults between the ages of 70-85. As a nurse I have really only worked with the geriatric population. I work at a hospital in Arizona that is close to many different retirement communities. Our hospital’s average patient age is 74. This makes working with younger patients little more uncomfortable for me. I wonder if it is because younger patients are generally not as used to being in the hospital and I worry about not being able to calm their fears.
Cultures that are very different than mine also make me a little uncomfortable to communicate with them. I worry that I will offend the patient with something like eye contact. I work with a lot of Navajo patients. At first, I was nervous to work with Navajo patients because I did not know a whole lot about their culture, but as I have learned and worked with the Navajo, I have felt more comfortable being able to effectively communicate with them.
I had a patient from India and was nervous to be working with them for the same reason. This patient was one of the most kind hearted people I have ever met. By the time she was ready to be discharged I had learned a lot about her culture and enjoyed getting to know her.
I do not feel uncomfortable communicating with other races, I feel more uncomfortable communicating with cultures that are different than mine. I think it is more that I am worried about possibly offending someone because of my own culture’s customs, and I can be unaware of other culture’s customs.
Communicating with someone of a different living situation is generally pretty easy for me as well. I have lived in communities that have a lot of diversity and that has helped me to understand the different living situations that people have.
One thing I have recognized is that as a nurse, we work with so many different people. Everyone at some point in their life is going to need medical attention, and a nurse will be there to take care of them. As nurses we have to learn how to communicate with people who are very different from us and learn to adapt to the many different cultures and personalities we work with.
When I was growing up, many of my experiences with how older adults are treated is mostly with respect. However, I also felt like older adults were seen as to be a burden on the family. I grew up learning that it may be best for older adults to be in an assisted living place. It has been found that many adult children are around the age of 60 or 70 when they are taking care of their 90-year-old parent (Graham, 2018, p. 1). According to Graham (2018) Caregiving at the age of 60 or 70 can be very hard on the body and adds extra mental and physical stress (p. 1). I am not sure if having older adults in an assisted living is the best place for older adults, but I am interested in learning more about this topic this week.
Reference:
Graham, J. (2018, August 23). A late-life surprise: Taking care of frail, aging parents. Retrieved
from https://khn.org/news/a-late-life-surprise-taking-care-of-frail-aging-parents/.
