Gary Tetz

You work in a difficult profession — long-term care. We all know that. I’m not even going to list the myriad challenges again, for fear of manifesting them into permanence.  And yet, if your existence...

In a cruel twist of fate, I spent the past weekend in Las Vegas. Now, before I say more, I need to be clear: I love the people of Vegas, the long-term care facilities of Vegas, the long-term care staff...

“At your age …” At the beginning of life and near the end, it’s one of the most discouraging phrases any of us are likely to hear. 

Last time out here, I gave long-term care professionals official permission to swear, making the case, with strong scientific support, that an occasional obscenity is actually healthy. I assume for most...

What did you say when you found out your director of nursing had quit? Or that a new COVID-19 variant was knocking at your facility door? Or when CMS announced that survey citations will appear on Care...

Finding warm-ish, semi-qualified bodies is just part of the long-term care staffing challenge. Without being psychic or subjecting each applicant to a full, military-grade psychological evaluation, how...

Many long-term care administrators know how to foster that kind of environment already, but I might just have to drive the rest of them over to my gas station to observe and somehow assimilate their methods...

At the end of a long shift on Christmas Eve, two CNAs are chatting in the facility parking lot. “Rough day,” says one. “A family member yelled at me about problems I can’t solve and things that...

At this festive time of year, it’s all-too-easy to be charmed and delighted by visions of reindeer leaping from rooftops and scampering across the sky. But before we let such images cloud our judgment,...

I think it’s a law that every boy has to try secretly smoking behind the garage, at least once in childhood. For me, that first attempt involved a neighbor kid and I grabbing a handful of grass — no,...