In the 1980s, Penn developed and led the Teaching Nursing Home Initiative, an innovative national project that placed students into nursing homes. Discoveries from the project helped change nursing education, nursing home care, and federal guidelines—and expanded the potential for geriatric nursing.
Now, with many nursing homes and care workers still reeling from the impact of COVID-19, Penn Nursing has decided to revive the program.
“Nursing homes have a reputation for being boring or perhaps not valuable places to work, especially among acute-care nurses,” said Desiree Fleck, PhD, the associate director of NURS 2550. Through this initiative, “we’re hoping to change that attitude.”
Since its revival, attitudes have already begun to shift among nursing students.
“I loved being with the older adult population and want to build connections with patients who I can continue to follow up with,” said Esther Lee, a student who entered the program with a one-track mindset for pediatric care. After her visit to Wesley Enhanced Living Main Line, she’s now strongly considering family primary care instead.
Over the next three years, Penn Nursing will share its lessons and successes from the Teaching Nursing Home Initiative with other nursing schools and nursing homes in the region in order to help them replicate the program—ideally exposing every nursing student in the area to nursing-home work.