Golden Living Joint Educational Program Nurtures the Next Generation of Senior Caregivers

Dotty Reid | posted May 26, 2010 |

As a registered nurse and the National Director of Clinical Education for Golden Living, I have always been an advocate for nurses choosing a career in long-term care. It takes a special kind of person to specialize in senior healthcare, and Golden Living is active in addressing the shortage of nurses, physicians and other healthcare professionals who specialize in treating seniors.

Golden LivingCenter – Greenville in North Carolina has teamed up with the East Carolina University School of Medicine to help do just that. Over the past 28 years, Golden Living and its predecessors have donated more than $2 million to help fund the school’s groundbreaking Teaching Nursing Home Project. The project allows medical professionals to participate in a four-week rotation at the LivingCenter, which includes intensive lectures and hands-on experience with health issues such as falls, pressure ulcers, vision/hearing impairment, dementia, delirium, and depression, as well as interactions that may result from multiple medications. Participants include primary care and geriatric physicians, as well as pharmacists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and other medical professionals trained to treat elderly patients.

Golden LivingCenter - Greenville patients benefit by having access to the knowledge and expertise of East Carolina School of Medicine’s geriatrics faculty and physician fellows. The medical professionals get to learn geriatric medicine on-site at a skilled nursing facility where real patients offer an array of learning opportunities. To date, more than 1,000 medical professionals have participated in the program and are now incorporating what they learned into their medical practices around the world.