Long-term care is great for acquiring nursing skills: Samuelson
Friday, May 11, 2007 -- Deron Hamel
Karl Samuelson would like to see an ugly myth dispelled – the myth that long-term care nurses don’t acquire necessary nursing skills.

This fallacy has hurt the long-term care sector for years, says Samuelson, Garden Terrace’s administrator. It has made hiring nurses in long-term care homes a difficult task, he adds.

Ironically, Samuelson says long-term care is the best sector for nurses to hone their skills.

“All of the essential qualities that we look for in a nurse leader can be consistently applied across the system,” says Samuelson, who, after six years of working in acute care, made the switch to the long-term care sector. He has remained in long-term care for 21 years.

“Nowhere is there a better opportunity to exercise those skills than in long-term care,” he adds.

Shelley Johnson, a registered practical nurse at Garden Terrace, trained in hospitals and nursing homes before coming to the Kanata long-term care residence. She has never looked back at her decision to work in long-term care.

Like Samuelson, Johnson believes long-term care to be a valuable forum for nurses to garner skills.

“I believe, wholeheartedly, that an experienced nurse in long-term care could make a transition more easily to acute care than an acute-care nurse could to long-term care,” she says. “I think we have more skills. We deal with dementia, we deal with families and we know our patients better.”

Decision making, clinical assessment and building multidisciplinary health-care teams are leadership skills long-term care nurses acquire, says Samuelson. These skills are valuable assets to anyone looking to climb the ladder into management positions, he says.

Nurses who shy away from long-term care, Samuelson says, “are missing out on a very exciting field to work.”

Long-term care is also a sector which is expected to see significant growth in coming years. According to Statistics Canada, 16 per cent of the Canadian population will be 65 or older by 2016. By 2040, the number is expected to grow to almost 25 per cent.

“I can see lots of opportunity in health promotion and illness prevention,” says Johnson. “I can see many opportunities in specialized services, such as palliative care and nursing homes, as well.”

There is also a personal touch felt in long-term care nursing, says Johnson.

“You get to know (residents) like family,” she says. “You get to form lasting relationships and friendships, not only with the residents, but also with their family members.”

For more information on long-term care nursing, contact OMNI’s home office at (705) 748-6631.