‘It’s a calling:’ Nurses share their experiences
ZELIENOPLE — Stacie Grenet was not sure what she wanted to do when she graduated high school in 2006, she just knew that she wanted to help others.
“When I graduated high school, I knew I had to do something,” Grenet said. “I wanted to take care of people, but I didn’t know what that was really.”
Grenet ended up finding her calling. She became a nurse.
National Skilled Nursing Care Week, which ended May 20, was created by the American Health Care Association in 1967. The week is a celebration of skilled nurses who provide high-quality and round-the-clock coverage care to millions of America’s seniors and individuals with disabilities.
“There’s a stigma out there that nursing home nurses just pass out medication and don’t have all these assessment skills,” said Lutheran Senior Life Passavant Community director of nursing, Rhonda Hoover. “It’s a specialty, like psychiatry and cardiology. You have to know all the system, all the bodies.”
Nursing in Pennsylvania has experienced a rise in turnover rate recently. In January the Hospital and Health System Association of Pennsylvania reported that the turnover rate for registered nurses increased nearly 5% from 2019 to 2022, while the turnover rate for certified nursing assistants increased 1.5% during that same time.
