Better With Age
With years of valuable skills and experience at their disposal, retired nurses continue to prove their worth by staying active in the profession

By Janet Wells
October 29, 2002

Vivien De Back's irrepressible retirement pace-which includes editing an international nursing journal, lobbying for nursing causes and speaking at nursing meetings-often has inspired family and friends to quip: When is she really going to stop working?

"I just tell them, 'Never,' " said the 69-year-old, who retired in 1995 after 41 years in nursing.

"The people I know in nursing, when they leave their jobs, they do other things that enhance nursing," said De Back, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, of Franklin, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee. "Nursing is so much a part of our lives that we have to stay involved in it. Itin our soul."

De Back is part of a dynamic cadre of nurses who are busier than ever in retirement. They're using their skills to volunteer and work part time in myriad capacities in hospitals and classrooms, leading community support groups and parish health programs, recruiting new nursing students, lobbying for political causes and helping professional nursing organizations.

With a severe nursing shortage looming-and the average age of nurses higher than ever-retirees like De Back are fast becoming a crucial link in the nursing profession.

"The older nurse is essential to the workforce. That is a person who brings vast experience and wisdom," said Betsey Snow, MPH, director for workplace advocacy at the American Nurses Association in Washington, D.C. "To lose that person is going to be a very difficult thing because it will be hard for nursing to fill that gap."

De Back credits a nursing mentor with planting the seed for an active retirement in her mind. Thirty years ago, just after De Back was named dean of the nursing school at Alverno College in Milwaukee, the dean of nursing at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Val Prock, introduced herself.

"She very much welcomed me into the group," De Back said. "I learned a lot of things from her about how to mentor people."

De Back also was impressed when Prock retired in her 60s and joined the Peace Corps. "I thought she was a really good role model for retirement," she said. "That stayed in my mind."

De Back has a paid part-time consulting position with the International Council of Nurses, editing the International Nursing Review-an extension of the nursing education work she did in the 1980s and 1990s in Eastern Europe. She also volunteers in the political arena, working with Rep. Jerry Kleczka, D-Wis., on nursing issues, and speaking at professional gatherings, such as the Wisconsin Nurses Association meeting Oct. 24-26.

De Back and her husband manage to squeeze kayaking, biking, hiking and traveling into their retirement, as well as spending time with their four children and seven grandchildren.

"I try hard to control my time so I can do all that," De Back said. "But I also like to work and help make the world a better place, and get the money needed for the most vulnerable among us. Those are the things that really turn me on."

Shortage soldiers

As more nurses retire along with the nation's aging baby boomers, the nursing shortage is expected to become increasingly widespread. According to the National Center for Health Workforce Information and Analysis, the shortage is expected to grow relatively slowly to about 12 percent until 2010. At that point, demand will begin to exceed supply at an accelerated rate and the shortage is expected to jump to about 20 percent by 2015.

Some retired nurses, like Gerry McCarthy, RN, of Traverse City, Mich., want to continue working part time to help ease the nursing shortage, but have to limit their hours so they don't go above the allowable earnings set by Social Security. McCarthy, 64, retired two years ago and works on call at Grand Traverse Pavilions, an extended care facility.

"My goal is to make the schedule of the [staff] nurses better by working for them so that they may have a day off. Young mothers are especially appreciative to be able to attend ballgames, school plays or just be home on Halloween," McCarthy said. "It is a rewarding way to continue investing in the field."

Until she reaches 65, McCarthy cannot earn more than $10,800 annually without facing a 50 percent reduction in her Social Security benefits. She would like to see the government relax the rules on allowable earnings for nurses who take early retirement.

"That would encourage more nurses to continue working … as the shortage continues," she said.

That would be good news for hospitals which, in response to the shortage, are calling on retired nurses to work, said Cindy Price, MA, senior public relations specialist for the ANA. "Whenever they can get people to fill in, they will."

But the pressure and physical toll of hospital work does not appeal to many older nurses who might otherwise want to stay active after they retire. The key, Snow said, is figuring out what kinds of postretirement work will appeal to nurses and keep them engaged, satisfied and not overburdened.

The ANA, which recently completed a pilot survey on the mature, experienced nurse, would like to offer some answers soon. Results of the survey, which compiled information on and for retiring nurses, are expected to be released soon in the American Journal of Nursing, as well as on the ANA Web site.

Retiree Sharon Dempsay, RN, would welcome more information. The 62-year-old Fort Worth, Texas, resident has been working part time in quality control since she retired in 1999 and is keen to do more to promote nursing-but like many others, she doesn't know where to start. Her idea is to establish a network in her home state that would facilitate retired nurses going to job fairs and school career days, and would encourage the Legislature to recruit and "push the profession back in the limelight," she said.

"I would be very interested in being part of something that would help the nursing profession get back on its feet."

Seasoned faculty

Terry Valiga, Ed.D., RN, director of research and professional development at the National League for Nursing in New York City, also would like to see a more formalized system for engaging retired nurses-especially in education.

For nursing faculty-who are close to 50 years of age on average, according to the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses-the shortage issue is even more critical.

"The bottom line is that most of the people in faculty positions are at the retirement end of the career scale," Valiga said. "In the next couple of years, a great many are going to retire. It's really a major crisis."

Valiga and some of her colleagues at the National League for Nursing have been discussing how to go beyond simply encouraging retired nurses to stay involved. They are working on designing and implementing a formal program to bring retired faculty back into nursing education.

"[Retired faculty] could make a huge contribution," she said. "There are a number of creative ways we could continue to use faculty that retire."

Teaching part time, writing grant proposals and mentoring new faculty are a few of Valiga's suggestions, as well as volunteering as academic advisers for students.

"Younger faculty dress a little more like students and use younger language, but what students really respond to is faculty who respect them and want to help them learn, and invest time and energy in them," she said. "Older and retired faculty do that really well. Students really respect what experienced faculty bring."

Sarah Keating, Ed.D., RN, FAAN, is just the kind of retiree Valiga has in mind. The 67-year-old former community health nurse and academic retired to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains near Sacramento, Calif., "to hide out in the hills," she said, but never strayed far from the thick of nursing activity.

Before retiring in 2000, Keating was dean of nursing at Samuel Merritt College in Oakland, Calif., and was director of the nursing program at San Francisco State University. For 10 years before she retired, she also volunteered as director of the California Strategic Planning Committee for Nursing, which analyzed the nursing workforce. This made her her well-aware of an impending shortage.

"We predicted the shortage. We've been hollering about it for some time," she said. Keating continued her work with the committee after her retirement, but she cranked up the pace when she returned to her teaching roots.

Keating is a professor of online community health classes for San Diego-based National University and Excelsior College in New York. She also teaches online for University of Nevada, Reno, and is helping the school develop programs for nursing faculty.

"It's supposed to be part time," she said with a laugh. "Then I realized I was teaching three courses at the graduate level per semester. That's more than full time."

Keating said that she was looking forward to a relaxing retirement, but she knew she would find something to keep her busy, beyond the weekly tennis games and winter skiing in the Sierra.

"I love teaching and I love the [nursing] profession," she said. "I do believe that with our experience and with the shortage, we have things we can contribute."

Lifelong love

Jean Harlow, MSN, agreed. "I think that what I do can help make a difference," said the 73-year-old Sacramento resident, who volunteers with the California Board of Registered Nursing-where she worked for almost 14 years before retiring nine months ago.

As an employee, Harlow was a supervisor in nursing education. Now, she volunteers for the board's Nursing Workforce Advisory Committee, which is tackling various aspects of the nursing shortage in California. One week she might work six hours, another week a bustling 40 hours.

Even during busy weeks, Harlow finds that her volunteer work offers flexibility and far more control than the preretirement working world, giving her time to spend with her husband and their extended family of two children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

"I'm setting my hours and I have choices," she said. "I don't have day-to-day or supervisory responsibilities. But I'm still assisting in workforce planning, still contributing my knowledge."

Harlow also has remained active in the American Nurses Association\ California, and is looking at participating in parish nursing with her church.

"I don't think I ever anticipated a quiet retirement," she said with a laugh. "I'm not a person to sit at home and do nothing. I enjoy meeting people and working with people."

At 76, Jessie Pergrin, Ph.D., MPH, counts herself as "very fortunate" to be a dynamo in retirement.

The Tucson, Ariz., resident leads three support groups for family caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease, continuing the work she started in 1981 when she helped form one of Arizona's first Alzheimer's Association chapters. She also does public speaking on the issue and leads inservice training. Pergrin worked in public health and taught at the University of Arizona before she retired in 1989.

"I have a few friends who have a quiet retirement and play golf, but that's not my style," said Pergrin, who has hiked all over the world and recently returned from a cruise in Alaska. She also finds time to take her two dogs for a long walk every morning and evening.

"You go into nursing because you care about people," she said. "I can't even begin to tell you how rewarding it is to help people through Alzheimer's disease. I tell my families all the time, 'I get more from you than you get from me.' "

Contact Janet Wells at janetawells@hotmail.com.