Student nurses finding their vocation

Aspiring nurse Amanda Gercone admits she once held a stereotype toward older adult generations – and she believes that many nursing students feel the same way.

Gercone, a junior in nursing at Research College of Nursing in Kansas City, said she’s always aspired to a professional career in neonatal nursing, but a recent four-week experience at Independence’s Palmer Center has her rethinking these plans.

Instead of primarily working with infants in their first month of life, Independence resident Gercone said she is now more open-minded about working with aging populations. Gercone was one of eight nursing students who completed a once-a-week hands-on experience at the Independence Parks and Recreation Department’s Palmer Center as part of their Older Adult course.

“I think it’s just helped all of us have a different outlook on the aging population,” Gercone said on Nov. 4, the students’ final day in Independence. “Aging is something to look forward to, and it’s made all of us realize that the stereotypes about older adults have been broken by this experience.”

The four-week program aimed to educate nursing students about senior adults’ needs in the community, said Peggy Sowders, the Palmer Center’s senior adult program specialist. The students helped with activities ranging from preparing meals for homebound seniors to participating in Peer Exercise Program Promotes Independence, a stretching class that promotes strength training and balance.  

“One of the great things is to help break down the stereotypes that one group has about another,” Sowders said. For example, she said, younger adults might think senior citizens are incapable or are unwilling to participate in an active lifestyle once they reach a certain age.

On the coin’s flipped side, Sowders said the senior adults viewed members of a younger adult generation who are educated and are driven to help a population in need. With the aging of the baby boomers, a generation born between 1946 and 1964 in the post-World War II era, the need for health care and nursing services is multiplying, Sowders said.

“Most important, I think it shows the need is out there,” she said. “It shows that there is more need out there than there is service. We just touch a piece of it here. For every one, there’s probably a lot more that we don’t know about.”

Marty McWhorter, 56, has volunteered as PEPPI’s instructor for three years. She said the nursing students gained the importance of regular exercise among older adults, even with activities as simple as stretching. 

“In our class, we have fun; it’s not about expectations,” Independence resident McWhorter said. “As we get older, we can only do what we can do, and that’s it. I think they realized that.”

The eight students’ instructor, Terri Smith, is a registered nurse and assistant professor at the Research College of Nursing.

“Too often, their experience with the older adult population is in the hospital,” Smith said. “We wanted to offer them a contrast to that and show them that there are still older adults active in the community.”

One of the students’ most eye-opening experiences, Gercone said, was delivering meals to homebound senior citizens who are unable to prepare their own meals. She’d heard other nursing students’ anecdotes about the experience, but they hardly compared to seeing it herself, Gercone said.

“A lot of them would be waiting for us at the door,” she said. “For some of them that was the only thing they had to look forward to.” 

Nursing, Gercone said, is a rewarding field where people can serve as patient advocates and can build relationships with their patients – including senior citizens.

“They are just as important as anyone else in health care,” she said. “You need to at least give it a chance. I know that my perspective has changed a lot from just being here at the Palmer Center.”