|
| |
"MAKING GRAY GOLD" (TIMOTHY DIAMOND).
Term Paper ID:24894
|
|
|
Essay Subject:
Reviews work on dehumanizing aspects of nursing home care.... More...
|
5 Pages / 1125 Words
1 sources, 6 Citations,
TURABIAN Format
$20.00
Return to List of Papers
|
Paper Abstract:
Reviews work on dehumanizing aspects of nursing home care.
Paper Introduction:
This book report is based on Making Gray Gold: Narratives of Nursing Home Care by Timothy Diamond. The book was published by The University of Chicago Press. It consists of 280 pages, including index.
The main theme of Making Gray Gold is that nursing homes are bureaucratic institutions that could use a healthy dose of "mother's wit." Mother's wit describes the maternal feelings and interpersonal skills needed by all persons who give primary care to the elderly: "Mother's wit is not an abstract concept or a set of ideas; it is the wide range of practices that hold the organization together" (241). Nursing is a caring profession, and nowhere is compassion and insight more needed than in the sterile environment of the nursing home. As Diamond's instructor advised him, "You have to look into a patient's eyes as much as
Text of the Paper:
The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper.
Nursing is a caringprofession, and nowhere is compassion and insight more needed than in thesterile environment of the nursing home. BibliographyDiamond, Timothy. With such a minimaldegree of self-determination, it is virtually impossible for nursing homeresidents to achieve wellness. Some will be lucky enough to live inhomes where humanistic values outweigh the bureaucratic red tape. The book was published by The University ofChicago Press. On the other hand, once immigrants move tothe United States they assimilate many aspects of American culture, and theinstitutionalization of the elderly is one aspect that is gainingpopularity. Thesubsistence wages paid to the nursing assistants forced them to work doubleshifts, or two jobs, or constantly search for extra work. MakingGray Gold is a wakeup call to those who thought they were on track toplanning a comfortable retirement. Most had spouses or children who visited themregularly. Making Gray Gold is particularly recommended for those in society whoare self-righteous about their material possessions. For instance,regulations require all patients to shower in the morning. they constitute pockets ofpressure, strain, agitation--gaps between their needs for caretaking andthe structure in which they arise" (24 ). A largely ignored segment of the health careprofession is examined, the critical role of the nursing assistant. He realized thatthorough immersion into the nursing home environment was required toinvestigate core living conditions. For instance, one patient wanteda snack at night, but was denied. Some residents had hopes of leaving the nursinghomes after completing their periods of convalescence, others had lost allautonomy regarding their future living arrangements: "Each person sat in achair, or lay in a bed, or waited in a line, often appearing motionless,but actually moving and being moved through a social and political process"(74). Diamond elaborates on his theme by recounting his experiences as anursing assistant in various nursing homes in the United States. The author toldsuch compelling stories about the nursing home residents and the nursingassistants that I was moved to tears. In fact, the lowwages paid nursing assistants often aroused suspicion for the author whenhe went on job interviews: "The administrator where I first applied forwork understood the conflation of these gender, race, and class dynamics,summarizing them with his suspicious question, "Now why would a white guywant to work for these kinds of wages?" (187). Residents were constantly moved, orunder threat of movement, based on their physical, mental, and financialstability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.----------------------- 7 Most foreign cultures arebased on extended families and the elderly are kept in the family residenceas long as medically feasible. Diamond's book makes acompelling case for nursing home reform. For instance, separate wards of nursing homes are devoted toshort-term, skilled-care wings and other wards are designated as Medicareand private-pay sections. The nursing assistants are overwhelmingfemale, most in Diamond's study are African-American, and they areunderpaid relative to the responsibilities they must assume. But despite theresidents' fears and discomfort, the showers were mandatory because stateregulations required them. Others wanted to mourn for a residentwho had passed away; the rules did not allow this. The patients in Diamond's nursing homes hadprecious little of this; their lives were regulated from the moment theyawakened (or were forced to awaken) until the moment they were put to bed.Patients were not allowed to deviate from the rules even when the rules didnot make sense: "Most of the requests that have peppered these pages wereneither grandiose nor impractical . Others had simply outlived their relatives. Although Diamond's book centers on nursing home patients, he givesequally revealing insight into plight of the nursing assistants who provideprimary care for the patients. As Diamond's instructor advisedhim, "You have to look into a patient's eyes as much as you can, and learnto get the signals from there" (17). The main theme of Making Gray Gold is that nursing homes arebureaucratic institutions that could use a healthy dose of "mother's wit."Mother's wit describes the maternal feelings and interpersonal skillsneeded by all persons who give primary care to the elderly: "Mother's witis not an abstract concept or a set of ideas; it is the wide range ofpractices that hold the organization together" (241). Otherswill have the misfortune to live in homes where residents are not affordedthe dignity that should come with old age. My reaction to this book was strongly emotional. Theauthor, a male, completed training as a nursing assistant and went"undercover" while gathering information for this ethnographic study. Making Gray Gold: Narratives of Nursing Home Care. The book deals with the elderly, death and dying, and illness.The health care delivery system is critiqued as is one of its major federalprograms, Medicare. Millions of people who are savingfor retirement today have no clear idea about the nature of their future"golden years." The fate of the residents described in Diamond's book isthe fate of all but the wealthiest Americans. I suppose I identified with thenursing home situation because in my culture, such facilities are not aswidespread as they are in the United States. Inother words, Diamond, a sociologist by education and training, rarelyrevealed that he was researching and writing this book. Another startling discovery that Diamond made is that the majority ofresidents in nursing homes are not, as the public assumes, "abandoned"there by their relatives. . These "self-made"people look down on citizens who receive any form of public aid. . And yes, most of the residents are eventually robbed oftheir life savings, but the fact that the robbery occurs legally, becausethe system is so burdensome, is little consolation: "Personal resourceswere depleted within months, and residents became paupers, dependent forthe rest of their lives on public aid. For many, with brittle bones and highly sensitive bodythermometers, it was an effort just to stand or sit underneath it" (136).Residents screaming in the showers was commonplace. It consists of 28 pages, including index. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Diamond's book is the dynamicnature of nursing home residency. Some had to endure the pain ofsitting in the home knowing their spouse or children were going nearlybroke" (59). Making Gray Gold relates to the study of medical sociology on manylevels. The nursing assistants in the nursing homes Diamond investigated areconstrained by bureaucratic regulations designed to facilitaterecordkeeping, not necessarily the comfort of the patients. This book report is based on Making Gray Gold: Narratives of NursingHome Care by Timothy Diamond. Making Gray Gold relates to wellness because it examines physical andmental health in the context of a specific environment, the nursing home.To achieve wellness, a person must exert some degree of self-determinationover their well-being. Because thenursing facility's water heating system has a finite amount of hot wateravailable, the residents who were the last cleansed invariably were forcedto take cold showers: "A few of the more frail were frightened just by theshower itself. In a book that critiques nursing homes, the reader expects to findanecdotes that describes gross injustices such as a facility that leavesthe residents chained to beds or illegally robs them of their savings.Instead Making Gray Gold reveals the small injustices and dehumanizingpractices that relentlessly grind away at the elderly residents' autonomyand self-esteem. When they become elderly, these peopleare likely to become poor for the first time in their lives, and underconditions in which they are most vulnerable. Diamond'sbook describes a harrowing economic process in which even the life savingsof the well-to-do elderly are inexorably sucked dry by the system. Also, members ofvolunteer groups such as churches made regular visits to the homes to cheerthe residents. The average American will beforced, because of ill-health or other circumstances, to live in one of thenursing homes Diamond describes. Andthe field of health care administration is explored in depth. Making Gray Gold is recommended reading for any person in anyeconomic segment of American society.
If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again:
or
Click here to request an essay written just for you.
|
|
|
