Director of the Institute of Health Sciences: healthy aging is not an extension of old age, but an extension of youth

According to the director of the Institute of Health Sciences of the Faculty of Medicine of Vilnius University (VU), Prof. Dr. Nataljas Istominas, nurses are health professionals with whom patients establish the closest relationship. At the same time, it is a constantly evolving profession, the influence of which on public health becomes more significant every year. Not only because of the growing number of seniors, but also because of the growing part of young people, for whom taking care of their health is part of the modern fashionable lifestyle.

The expectation of nurses is respect for the profession

On October 27-28, N. Istomina, who has been training young nursing professionals for more than two decades, will tell in detail about how this profession is changing. At the LITEXPO Health Exhibition and Conference, the slogan of which is “The direction of your longevity”.

According to the VU professor, nurses are the greatest health care force in the world. We do not maintain such a close, sincere relationship with any other specialist. It is not surprising that this job requires very specific abilities and personality traits from a person.

“The most valuable quality is a high level of empathy, emotional intelligence. At the same time, vocation is very important. Without it, you simply cannot enter the nursing profession. A person who does not have a calling does not stay in such a field. In our work, it is very important to be able to understand and sympathize with a person, but also not to lose yourself. Excessive sensitivity can become an obstacle,” the interviewer warns.

The nurse is no longer just a supervisor in intensive care units or geriatric units. He is a specialist who, with his knowledge and competence, can help prevent diseases or diagnose them in time. After all, it is nurses who are usually the first to notice symptoms that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Therefore, N. Istomina urges you to feel proud of your profession. Respect for your work returns – when you respect yourself, society respects you.

“My main message is respect for the profession. I talk about this a lot with my students. The most important thing is not to lose trust in each other, in your colleagues. Let’s appreciate each other, our abilities to make decisions independently. After all, we are fully prepared for that,” the director of the Institute of Health Sciences is convinced.

The understanding of what a nurse is is changing

According to the director of VU Institute of Health Sciences, who is helping to organize the conference “Creation and Development of Innovations in Nursing and Health Sciences”, which will be held during the exhibition, the work of nurses is becoming more and more responsible and requires more and more diverse competences. At the same time, professionals in this field themselves gain more independence and freedom of decision-making. Amendments to the Law on Nursing and Midwifery are even being considered in the Seimas, which would enable general practice nurses to self-prescribe certain medicinal products.

“It is also very important that the public’s understanding is changing. A nurse is no longer just some compassionate nurse. He is an independent specialist who makes medical and managerial decisions. It is a member of the health system, without which it would completely collapse,” says prof. Dr. N. Istomina.

Undoubtedly, the great responsibility that nurses assume also raises specific challenges. One of them is salaries. Compared to Scandinavia, they are still relatively few in our country. This has a negative impact on the prestige of this profession itself. Nurse(s) are still called by some people “sisters”, “nurses”, “the right hand of the doctor”, even though these professionals work independently and doctors are not their bosses.

“Professional prestige is very important in solving the fundamental problem – the shortage of nurses. It is seen all over the world. The situation in Lithuania is not yet so tragic, but the tension is felt. This means that the workload for specialists will keep increasing,” warns the interviewer.

What is the role of nurses in creating a long-lived society?

N. Istomina emphasizes that the work of nurses will face challenges in the near future, created by technological progress. Mobile apps and smart devices have already become work tools for nurses, and in the near future they will be joined by even more sophisticated solutions – robots and artificial intelligence. According to the VU researcher, this transformation will be very important for specialists. Far from everyone willingly accepts technology, but it will have to be done, because without it it will be difficult to enter a new stage of the evolution of nursing – the creation of a long-lasting society.

“Nurses will have a key role here. They already work not only with the sick but also with healthy people, which is especially important in the context of healthy aging. I want to emphasize that healthy aging is not an extension of old age, but an extension of youth. The nurses here have competences and can help with their consultations, direct them to the right institutions – doctors, lifestyle specialists, etc.,” she says.

According to the professor, the nurse becomes a kind of health team coordinator. He refers people to a Public Health Center or a lifestyle specialist. In addition, he can group patients and provide them with specific knowledge. For example, how to live with diabetes, multiple sclerosis, etc. Such lectures are not only valuable for the patients themselves, but also contribute to public health literacy.

Unfortunately, we still lack the latter. This is one of the main reasons why the life expectancy of Lithuanians is lower than that of Icelanders or Japanese. Introducing healthier living habits in society and changing trends is a long process, but the good news is that it is already accelerating. For example, a school life skills program started this year in Lithuania, the creation of which was contributed by Prof. Dr. N. Istomina.

“Longitudinal studies conducted in the United States confirm that those people who participate in such programs in childhood, compared to a control group, take care of their health significantly better. In Lithuania, our health education has historically been very fragmented, so we have very large differences in health knowledge in society. The coercive mechanism also does not work, because 50 percent health depends on lifestyle. We want to believe that more and more people will get involved in the health process,” she says.

The topic of the significance of the work of nurses and the contribution of these specialists to the creation of a long-lasting society will be only one of many that will be discussed at the LITEXPO Health Exhibition and Conference, which will be held on October 27-28. The organizers of the exhibition say that the two days of the event will be dedicated to improving awareness of wellness, developing health-friendly skills and attitudes, and searching for ways to properly take care of personal and whole family physical and emotional health.