Fairfield University Receives Grant To Bring Geriatric Nursing Program To Web

FAIRFIELD — The success of a geriatric nursing certificate program launched this past fall by Fairfield University’s School of Nursing enabled assistant professor of nursing Meredith Wallace, PhD, RN, to garner a second $10,000 grant from The Daphne Seybolt Culpeper Memorial Foundation to develop an online version of the program.

Last year, the Culpeper Foundation, established in 1983 with the focus of giving to education, health care, and human services, awarded the School of Nursing $10,000 to develop a Geriatric Nursing Certificate Program for nurses seeking to increase their skills in working with older adults. The course ran last fall and graduated 18 students. The Culpeper Foundation’s latest grant will allow the School of Nursing to implement the online program for students this fall.

“We had extraordinary interest when the program began this fall,” noted Dr Wallace. “Now we will be able to offer the program to a much broader population.”

Advances in medical care have resulted in much longer lifespan and thus increased need for nurses who are caring for older adults, she said. US citizens are living on average to the age of 83, 18 years more than they did 100 years ago, according to the US Administration on Aging.

However, many misconceptions persist among health care workers about the care of older adults, said Dr Wallace, such as that they are difficult to deal with and ungrateful for the care they receive.

Measures of nurses before and after the Geriatric Certificate Program indicated that they had improved their knowledge and attitudes about working with older adults, Dr Wallace said.

The certificate program provides students with 24 contact hours of work. With six more hours, registered nurses with two years of experience working with older adults can then sit for the Gerontological Specialty Nursing Certification examination provided by the American Nurse Credentialing Center. The credential provided by the center is a nationally recognized benchmark for excellence in geriatric nursing, said Dr Wallace.

“We are grateful to the Culpeper Foundation for its continued support of Fairfield University’s efforts to address the need for nurses who specialize in geriatric healthcare,” said Jean Novotny, dean of the School of Nursing.