Nursing home immersion project highlighted in ‘The DO’
The DO, a publication by the American Osteopathic Organization, recently released an article highlighting the nursing home and hospice home immersion projects at the College of Osteopathic Medicine.
The article focused on the need to teach physicians about end-of-life care. The program, which is directed by Marilyn R. Gugliucci, Ph.D., professor and director of Geriatrics Education and Research, invites students to spend two weeks living in nursing homes experience life as patients. It is now in its ninth year and includes 14 nursing homes in four states. “Students feel they don’t come out the same person,” Gugliucci told The DO. “They connect heart-to-heart with the residents and often don’t want to leave their nursing home friends at the end of the project.”
The article also mentions the hospice home immersion program that Gugliucci launched last year. Pairs of students spend 48 hours in a hospice home observing the care involved in guiding patients through the final stages of the dying process. Eighteen students have completed that program.