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More than medicine with Dr. Elizabeth Long

Dr. Elizabeth Long didn’t become a nurse because of some childhood calling or emotional turning point. It was a clear-headed decision.Dr. Elizabeth Long

“I’m a very black-and-white person,” she said. “I looked at the options and nursing just made sense. It was a career where I could help people and see results right away.”

After graduating from Baylor University in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Long began her career in medical-surgical and critical care units. The fast-paced environment suited her logical, task-oriented personality. But over time, a pattern emerged.

“I kept gravitating toward older adult patients. I always wanted those assignments,” she said. “A lot of nurses didn’t, but I loved it.”

That affinity slowly evolved into a professional focus.

Her curiosity and passion for education led her to pursue a master’s degree at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where she concentrated on critical care and nursing education. Around that time, a phone call changed the trajectory of her career. Dr. Alexia Green, then-chair of the nursing department at Âé¶¹ÊÓÆµ, invited her to consider a teaching position.

“It wasn’t something I’d thought about seriously,” Long admitted. “I really liked being at the bedside. I liked seeing that I was making a difference, right then and there.”

But teaching, she discovered, offered a different kind of impact.

“You don’t just care for one patient. You shape future nurses who will care for thousands,” she said.

Now an associated professor of nursing at the JoAnne Gay Dishman School of Nursing at Âé¶¹ÊÓÆµ, Dr. Long has spent years shaping the way nursing is taught, particularly in the area of gerontology, the study of aging and the unique health and wellness needs of older adults. She has helped design curriculum that reflects the complexities of aging, emphasizing a holistic approach to care that goes beyond physical health.

One of her most personal and proudest initiatives grew out of an unexpected challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When students were required to complete community service hours but couldn’t enter long-term care facilities due to lockdowns, Long sought a new way to foster connection between students and older adults. The result was both simple and personal: handwritten letters.

“It came from a personal place,” Long said. “I knew what that kind of isolation could feel like. And our students were craving connection too.”

Students wrote to residents of long-term care facilities, many of whom wrote back. What began as a workaround quickly became a deeply meaningful exchange. Students kept journals reflecting on the experience, often writing about the emotional weight of aging, memory, and resilience.

“We got great quotes from students,” Long said. “Some of them were deeply moved by it. It gave them a new understanding of older adults, and of what loneliness really means.”

That initial exchange grew into a formal research project. Long and her colleagues began studying loneliness across different populations: residents in long-term care, homebound members of faith communities, and recipients of Meals on Wheels. The results were unexpected.

“The loneliest group wasn’t who I expected,” she said. “It was the homebound church members.”

While nursing homes and community programs often provided structured contact, daily care, meal deliveries, or scheduled visits, those quietly aging at home within faith communities often slipped through the cracks.

“Churches are good at doing things like bringing communion or sending a birthday card,” Long explained. “But for someone who used to be involved in every part of church life, it’s not the same. They miss the conversations. The sense of being needed.”

That research prompted action. In Southeast Texas and beyond, churches began informal “adoption” programs, matching members with older adults for regular check-ins, weekly calls, or rides to services and social events.

“It doesn’t have to be complicated,” Long said. “Just bringing someone to church, or calling once a week, can make a difference.”

As she continues to advocate for community-centered aging support, Long is also focused on projects within Âé¶¹ÊÓÆµ’s nursing program.

One of her current efforts involves developing a Blackboard-based platform to help nursing faculty prepare for the Certified Nurse Educator (CNE) exam. The initiative is part of a broader grant-funded program to support faculty development across the school of nursing.

“We want to make it accessible for anyone who wants to study for the exam,” she said. “We’re collecting data on how people use it, and we plan to publish findings from that work.”

At the same time, she’s taken on a major editorial role, one that brings her career full circle.

This year, Long is serving as the clinical editor for the 10th edition of Nursing for Wellness in Older Adults,” a widely used textbook she once taught from early in her academic career.

“It’s surreal,” she said. “When I first started teaching, this was the book we used. Now I get to work with the author, Carol Miller, who’s like a celebrity to me.”

Miller, a gerontological clinical nurse specialist based in Cleveland, Ohio, has spent decades advocating for older adults through roles in direct care, public education, and writing. Her book, first published in 1990 and honored with the American Journal of Nursing’s Book of the Year Award in Gerontological Nursing, has been translated into multiple languages and is considered foundational in the field.

“She’s incredible,” Long said. “Carol’s not just an author. She’s someone who really understands what it means to support people emotionally, physically, and socially through aging. Working with her is a privilege.”

Long and Miller collaborate via Zoom and email, with plans to meet in person this summer to finalize the edition, which is scheduled for release in February. Long’s favorite part of the process has been selecting images, specifically, those that reflect wellness in meaningful and relatable ways.

“We were trying to find the right picture, something joyful, something real,” she said. “There’s a photo of someone blowing out birthday candles, surrounded by words like ‘grief,’ ‘growth,’ ‘retirement,’ and ‘new purpose.’ It captures the emotional complexity of aging.”

In brainstorming ideas for images, Long mentioned her dad’s upcoming birthday. That led to her using family photos as potential art for the new edition. “It’s surreal,” she said. “To think we started with that first edition years ago, and now I’m helping shape this one. It means a lot.”

At the heart of all her work, from teaching to research to textbook editing, Long holds fast to a single guiding principle: listen first.

“There’s a big movement now in healthcare called Age-Friendly,” she said. “And one of the four essential questions is: What matters to you? Not what we think matters, but what the patient actually wants. It means asking what matters to someone, not just what’s the matter with them. That could mean pain control, or it could mean being well enough to attend a grandson’s graduation.”

The question “What matters to you?” has become a guiding philosophy for Long, shaping both her work and her worldview. It reflects a belief in treating people with dignity and recognizing the common threads of human experience.

“We’re all born the same way, and we all die the same way. It doesn’t matter what color you are, what religion you are. In the end, we all want to be seen,” she said. “We want someone to ask, ‘What matters to you?’ And actually listen.”