workforce
interviews I did recently, one of the most interesting things is that
the participants who worked in aged care were very person-
centred. They moved away from the medical model a little bit.
Whereas someone else might give a patient a Panadol, an AIN who
worked in aged care would go: “They just need a back rub.” So, it
was very non-medical, very person-centred.
It was interesting to see that some of the participants who were
acute-care focused, they focused a lot on clinical skills. I suppose
it’s because acute care has that list of things to do for a patient,
so they were a lot more clinical-skills focused, whereas aged care
tends to bring out that caring side of nursing.
I suppose it’s because they’ve got a lot of that interaction with
the residents that instils that perception of nursing in aged care,
AINs or RNs.
Where did you come from with this research?
I was an AIN, but I worked as an AIN in a hospital, which
was the difference. And the research came about
because I was doing my honours about how being
employed as an undergraduate AIN could help with nursing
education.
The participants I interviewed who came from
aged care were consistently saying: “We didn’t learn
anything from being an AIN in aged care. It was
so basic and routine.” When I went into my PhD, I
thought, “That can’t be right. They’ve got to be learning
something, they’re just not aware of it.” So, that’s how the
research came about.
What can we learn from this research?
It sounds to me like these nurses are getting the jump on their
graduate peers.
They are. They also sound like they’ve got a bit more of a grasp
of that unique nursing quality. In terms of being ahead of their
peers with clinical experience or healthcare experience per se,
there’s a bit more of a professional growth there. There’s a bit
more of that, “I’m a nurse, I care for patients.”
Those things that they call basic nursing skills, like showering
and feeding, are quite important to a person when they’re ill.
They’re not skills you brush to the side or don’t want to do.
They’re important for a person when they’re ill.
I would like to see undergraduates being more
involved in aged care. If they were, it would challenge
that ageist attitude that surrounds a lot of the
issues happening in aged care at the moment. That
increase in workload, the staff shortages, that kind of
thing. I think it would challenge those ageist attitudes,
which would have a long-term effect on how novice nurses
view aged care.
And it might strengthen the partnership between the aged
care sector and the university sector. It might help us partner in
educating the nurses of the future. ■
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