I’ve been a long-term care nurse for over 25 years, most recently as a gerontological nurse practitioner. I started out as a nursing assistant, but it wasn’t until I went to graduate school in 2006 that I realized how many people, including us long-term care nurses, fail to give direct care workers the respect and professional recognition they deserve.
My PhD thesis is on the reciprocal ethical caring values that characterize long-time nursing assistants. Part of my research was on the relationships between nursing assistants and the nurses who manage them, so I talked to about a thousand nurses and nursing assistants at nursing homes in southeastern Massachusetts. (Stay tuned to this blog for more on my thesis, which I’ll write about as soon as it’s been cleared for publication.) Over and over, I heard the nurses say of the nursing assistants: “They do this because they can’t do anything else.” Continue reading »









