Reenvisioning Gerontological Mental Health Nursing Education: A Commentary

Abstract

Reenvisioning gerontological mental health nursing begins with reinterpreting the meaning of aging and radically transforming the curriculum of the subspecialty. The commentary suggests 11 specific recommendations that expand on Morris and Mentes’s article as a way of reenvisioning and rerooting gerontological mental health nursing. Among the recommendations are renaming the subspecialty “gerontological mental health nursing” as a means to more appropriately reflect the multidisciplinary focus and mental health perspective, placing an equal emphasis on positive aspects of healthy aging, developing a standardized model curriculum, increasing the number of programs offering specialization in gerontological mental health nursing, and reinvigorating continuing education about gerontological mental health care for currently practicing nurses.

Keywords

aging stereotypes gerontological mental health nursing graduate nursing curriculum

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