Working in healthcare is a rewarding but often demanding job, and in many high-stress environments, can lead to burnout. For those who love their work but are ready for a change, a healthcare position in a senior living community may be just what the doctor ordered. If you’re considering changing healthcare careers, take a look at what senior living communities have to offer.
Why Change Careers within Healthcare to Senior Living?
A change of scenery:
It may not seem so important, but sometimes the institutional environment of a hospital or similar healthcare facility can begin to feel stifling. Conversely, today’s senior living communities are more like resorts with airy, sunlit spaces, large windows with views of landscaped open areas, and resident apartments that are not only accessible but homey and comfortable. If it’s time for a change of scenery, consider the difference in a senior living community like Senior Star.
A change of pace:
Healthcare is hectic, it’s the nature of the beast, but healthcare in a senior living community offers a slower pace. Residents in senior living are not as incapacitated as patients in hospitals and may only need only a lower level of care such as help with mobility, medications, and activities of daily living. Thus, a day’s work is performed at a regular but often less hurried tempo; one that is required to maintain care without the stress of typical hospital patient care.
Smaller healthcare teams:
Thanks to the overall better health of senior living residents, healthcare teams in senior living communities are smaller. This allows team members to become better acquainted and to function as a well-oiled machine to care for residents and ensure ongoing care continues to be exactly what is needed by each individual. Whether in assisted living or memory support, healthcare practitioners work closely together and learn to maximize each member’s assets, communicate better, and care for each other. To learn more reasons about why smaller teams are better, the lifehack.com blog, “Advantages of a Smaller Team,” spells it out.
Lower acuity setting:
Senior living communities embrace residents with a range of healthcare needs, but unlike in hospitals, these residents are considered lower acuity. For those seeking a break from stressful, high-acuity care, changing careers to a senior living community provides the opportunity to continue caring for people (the reason you choose healthcare in the first place, right?), while avoiding much of the stress and burnout often associated with high-acuity care positions.
Time to build relationships and trust:
Due to the long-term nature of senior living, residents are often there for years. This means caregivers have the time to get to know residents, even those not in their direct care, as actual people, not just names on a whiteboard or bed/room number.
Long-term relationships with residents help caregivers better understand how to best care for an individual, as well as how and when to change care plans to address health changes that occur over time. They may also find out something about a resident that can help improve their quality of life, for example by sparking an old interest or sharing memories that can brighten a dark day. Most of all, relationships help to build the trust that is so essential to keeping residents healthy and happy. Find out more about the importance of trust in the careexcellence.org blog, “Building Trust with Clients Is Crucial to Effective Care Planning.”
Know you are making a difference:
When nursing allows for relationships with coworkers and residents, it also opens the door to enjoying not only the work, but the place where you work and the people you work with. Senior living communities offer the opportunity to not just hope you have made a difference, but to know you have, every single day. Caring for our nation’s most vulnerable is a wonderful and rewarding job that brings daily smiles and thanks from residents, families and communities.
When considering changing careers in healthcare, check out the opportunities now available at Senior Star. We are dedicated to caring for our residents as well as our staff and look forward to meeting you!
