Letter to Editor

Article Outline

• Copyright

Dear Editor:

I’m a bit behind on journal reading and just finished your January 25 anniversary issue. I always read your editorials and always enjoy them. Thanks for writing them. The anniversary edition made me think about my career. I started as a nurse’s aide in rural Michigan—earned only $1.13 an hour, but loved every minute of the work.

It is hard to even imagine geriatric care as it was then and where it is now. The only books available to me then were published in England; none yet available in the United States. It took about 15 years after Medicare before the United States seemed to notice that elders were in need of special care. That has always amazed me! I can’t even begin to tell my GNP preceptees what it was like when I began. It is like describing the United States before there were cars.

It is amusing to see the fancy papers and research projects today that verify and support with statistics the ideas I learned from my patients years ago. I always chuckle when I read a paper describing the benefits of listening to the old folks.

Thanks to you, Pat Hess, Mathy Mezey, Ingeborg Mauksch, and all the others who have helped me on my way to where I am now in our exciting field of geriatric care. I am very glad my path led me here.