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Summary
On this episode, host Peter Murphy Lewis talks to Julie Masters, Professor of Gerontology at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Julie shares her passion for reframing how we view aging and why education, community design, and storytelling are essential to creating meaningful experiences for older adults. She reflects on shifts in gerontology programs, her own experiences navigating health care systems, and the urgent need to make communities more age-friendly.
Key Takeaways:
(00:00) Introduction
(01:54) Nobody hopes to end up in long-term care.
(06:07) COVID created a lasting stigma around aging.
(08:09) Students find inspiration in grandparents’ active lives.
(14:01) Health care systems can be difficult for older adults to navigate.
(15:37) Simple design changes make environments age-friendly.
(18:19) Older adults grow less alike as they age.
(22:40) Safe spaces encourage storytelling and dignity.
(26:40) Meaning and purpose remain possible at any age.
Resources Mentioned:
University of Nebraska Omaha website
“The Book of Charlie” by David Von Drehle
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For more information and to connect with our guests, visit PeopleWorthCaringAbout.com.
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Transcript
Julie Masters: Part of the challenge then for students is to see that, as people age, not everybody is frail and firm on their last leg, so to speak. That there are many older people that are vibrant and engaged and active in the community.
Peter Murphy Lewis: The world does not run on headlines. It runs on people who care. I'm Peter Murphy Lewis, and this is "People Worth Caring About." Alongside my co-host, Jalene Carpenter, we sit down with the unsung heroes, caregivers, healers, helpers, the ones doing the real work, even when no one is watching. These conversations are not polished, they're personal. Because behind every act of care is a story worth hearing. New episodes drop regularly. Get updates at peopleworthcaringabout.com.
Julie Masters: Hi, everyone, I'm Dr. Julie Masters, and I am a professor of gerontology from the University of Nebraska Omaha, but teaching on the University of Nebraska Lincoln Campus. So excited to be here.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Wonderful. Welcome back to "People Worth Caring About," Dr. Masters.
Julie Masters: Thank you so much, Peter. What a privilege to be in your company again. I really hit the jackpot twice, right?
Peter Murphy Lewis: You and I met probably 2022?
Julie Masters: I think so.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Yeah.
Julie Masters: But it was the height of crane season, and now you're back, and there aren't as many cranes.
Peter Murphy Lewis: And we geeked out on books, how you got into seniors, and you fell in love with aging adults at a young age. What inspires you today? What is new on your mind? What were you thinking about on your drive over here related to long-term care?
Julie Masters: Well, I think driving over here, and it's curious, because I taught this morning in Lincoln, and visiting with students about assisted living long-term care, my comment to them was, "Nobody starts their day saying, 'Oh, I hope I end up in assisted living,' or, 'I hope I end up in long-term care.' But that will happen sometimes. Somebody breaks a hip, or they find that they need additional care and they don't have the family to support them." And so, this idea of how can we create spaces to allow people to thrive? How can I inspire my students to get so excited about the study of aging and the opportunities in long-term care that they want to go out and change the world?
Peter Murphy Lewis: I have so many follow-up questions around that.
Julie Masters: Please.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Do you have any idea how long we've been studying aging?
Julie Masters: So, the word gerontology was coined in the 1900s by a gentleman named Dr. Élie Metchnikoff, who was a biologist, I believe it was 1904. And at the time, he recognized that this was an area of study that was worthy of further examination. If you've ever heard of the word adolescence coined by G. Stanley Hall, he also coined the word senescence, and this idea of this period of time where people age.
And yet when Metchnikoff and G. Stanley Hall were thinking about aging, what they didn't know is that people would find themselves living into much more advanced ages. So 85, 90, 95, and 100. And so, what we understood about aging then is different than what we understand about aging today.
Peter Murphy Lewis: What's the biggest change, you would say?
Julie Masters: Well, I think a good thing is that we are seeing more men living to 85 and older than we've ever seen before. I also think it's interesting that we're seeing women who, one of the co-authors for a presentation that we're going to have a little later, she received her PhD in sociology at a time women probably were not pursuing a PhD. Or even at my age, I'm 63, I'll be 64 in a second here, and it's that idea that the opportunities have changed for women, whether it's as an academic, or a physician, or an attorney, or an accountant. The sky is the limit for women. And I think that has changed. What also has changed is the idea that the kinds of conditions that people have, particularly in long-term care, are a little more complicated than maybe what they were 30, 40 years ago.
Peter Murphy Lewis: I guess before I ask this question, I've been to a lot of schools and colleges and universities recently, and I did a presentation to an Association of Colleges in Kansas. And we presented what we did here in Nebraska, the documentary People Worth Caring About. And I sense, they didn't say it out loud, but they would say it to me, because I'm not a peer of theirs, that almost all of the colleges are in crisis. Not just because of things related to Trump and visas, but there's a questioning of upper education for quite some time, and there's decline, there's fear of AI. Is it happening in gerontology as well?
Julie Masters: Well, it's interesting, and we didn't even talk about this before this interview took place. So, we've been doing research in our department with a gerontology database that a handful of research assistants developed. So, if you go out to gerontologyunomaha.edu, or just type in gerontology database, that will take you to the page where that database rests. And what we've been watching and observing is, and before the current election happened in November, prior to that we were seeing a decline in the number of gerontology programs across the United States.
Whereas we were seeing just this huge uptick in program growth, it seems that about the time of Covid, and I affectionately refer to it as the "Covid Curse," that we saw this shift in terms of interest and enthusiasm in wanting to study aging.
And part of the challenge, then, for students is to see that as people age, not everybody is frail and firm on their last leg, so to speak. That there are many older people that are vibrant and engaged and active in the community. But I'd also say you can find those same people in long-term care setting. So somehow, again, with the Covid Curse, anytime you picked up a newspaper or looked at a newsfeed, it talked about Covid and older people. That gets stuck in people's heads. And so, somehow, we have to reframe or shift that thinking.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Do you have, and I'll tell you my tricks, so you think about, but do you have any tricks that you use to get maybe students who don't know yet that they're going to be great at studying gerontology to get them interested? And I'll tell you my trick while you think about it.
I've spent the last 10 years living professionally mostly as a storyteller, whether it be a podcast, or documentary. Before that, I was in the travel industry and I taught people to talk about themselves, to make people fall in love with their country. And my trick to get people to learn how to storytell is to think about somebody really important in their life. And they can usually tell that person's story well, but we can't tell our own story, because we feel like we can't see it, or we're too humble, or whatever it is. But if you trick them into thinking about their mom, or their uncle, or their babysitter, their favorite teacher, do you have any tricks?
Julie Masters: So, it's curious you say that, and I don't couch it that way. But yesterday, this is by the way, the first week of the semester at the university, so it's kind of a hectic time. But we started off in the Psychology of Adult Development and Aging course. Who are your role models? Who are the people? And it was extraordinary. One student said, "Well, my grandpa, he's 94..." Or 95 I think it was, "... and he likes to climb up into the combine and ride around in the field, because that's his life." Another young woman mentioned that her grandmother's 84, and that, monthly, she goes on trips to all different countries with a group of women, and they're living their best life.
Two other examples, and they were... But curiously, they were family members that they described. And I said, "What about just people in the community? Or what about famous people?" And they mentioned people, your traditional Betty Whites, and Vera Wang, and so forth. But I need to take a page out of your book and say, "Let's start telling the story." That's why there's a book I mentioned to you, the Book of Charlie, that I'm having the students read in the Psych of Adult Development, because I want them to see an example of someone that managed to live to be 109, didn't let adversity bring him down, didn't let tragedy change his narrative, but that he was able to grow from the experience.
Peter Murphy Lewis: I have a follow-up question on the book. What is a non-academic book that has been in your curriculum the longest or most amount of times?
Julie Masters: Oh, we talked about this a while ago. So, I also teach Death and Dying, and Tuesdays With Morrie, which I use every semester because, what's interesting is the students more than likely have not been exposed to it, so it gives them a chance to learn about him, but it's a gentleman that's dying. But then I've also have Elie Wiesel's Night, and then companion that with his final book, Open Heart, so that students can see, here's somebody who really went through horrific conditions as a young man, as a teenager, and now here he is as an older man, and here was how he looked at life. At least for these questions.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm actually just doing this for my own interest to write down books. I don't remember if we talked about this, but have you read the book Fear... It's about the hospice nurse in Australia, Fear of Dead and Dying? Oh, I'll share it with you afterwards. After The Five Languages of Love, it's the book that I've gifted the most.
Julie Masters: Really?
Peter Murphy Lewis: Yeah. So for those of you who might be-
Julie Masters: Great question. What's the book you've gifted the most?
Peter Murphy Lewis: Well, I have a computer in front of me here.
Julie Masters: The Fear of Dying.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Let me look it up.
Julie Masters: The Fear of Death and Dying?
Peter Murphy Lewis: Hospice, nurse, Book, fear of dead, dying.
Julie Masters: Isn't it grand that you have a go-to book to give people?
Peter Murphy Lewis: On Death and Dying by Elizabeth-
Julie Masters: Oh, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Yeah.
Julie Masters: Oh, that was from 1969 and where she developed her five stages. It's an interesting read, and it's through the lens of one person. But interesting, yeah. Can I come back to it?
So, the book that I gift the most has been Tom Attig, or Thomas Attig's book, The Heart of Grief. And it is a beautiful read, because instead of chapters being 20, 30, 40 pages, it may only be two or three pages, and it gives people the chance to read it, think about it, really meditate on it, and then continue.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Love it. Let's move to movies or TV. Are you drawn to documentaries or movies or shows to also learn from them? I'm really drawn to Young Sheldon recently, because I'm interested how my son is learning from it. And therefore, I'm learning how to be a parent by the way that he learns. Do you watch things on screen in a similar form?
Julie Masters: I got to tell you, I don't have a lot of time. There was a movie that I saw coming back from Seattle, I'd gone to the Gerontological Society meeting, and that was Thelma. Did you happen to see it?
Peter Murphy Lewis: I don't think so.
Julie Masters: So, Thelma is this woman that lives at home and her grandson takes care of her. And it's part of that grandparent scam. She gets taken, somebody calls, and she thinks it's him. And she goes to see her friend who lives in an independent assisted living community, and they, together, go after the scammer. That was a beautiful film. And I think something like that was very useful, but I was also on a plane, and that was what I needed to do.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Dr. Masters, I have a question for you around recent knowledge or observations that you have acquired, and I'll plant the question in the following manner. I think the difference between me and you, and understanding aging from an academic point of view, is probably 50 years of expertise, right? I've never taken one single class. So, all I've done is talked about it and probably read very superficial blogs. So it's almost hard for me to understand, what have you learned in the last year?
Julie Masters: You really are quite good at your position, I hope you know that. You're very good. So, like I said, I'm a minute away from turning 64. And I graduated with my master's degree in 1985. So, there's been a lot of decades there. But my appreciation of aging has really emerged, not only from books and film, and things, but my own aging. And having to, because of a health issue that I had, having to go to multiple healthcare providers, having to go for referrals, having to get this rather convoluted prescription list, and thinking, "How do older people do this?" Using different apps to be able to log in advance, and be able to scan my insurance cards and other things. And again, thinking, "How do older people do this?" Going to a pharmacy, nationwide pharmacy that remains nameless, that's not open a lot, the people probably figure out who that is. And then to find that they won't cut pills for people. That, "Oh, we don't that."
And then I think, But what about that older person who may have a tremor? Or what about that older person who... I had cataract surgery a couple of years ago. What about that older person who has to try to put drops in their eyes, but they have severe arthritis, or they have a tremor? Or whatever the circumstance. And Peter, we could do such a better job of making life more adaptable for people as they age.
One of the cool things... So, I mentioned being on a plane to Seattle watching this film, which I also saw Coco going to Israel on a trip one time, and I thought, "This is the best way to watch a film," because I feel like I'm being productive. Anyways. Every restroom, every stall, has grab bars. So, not just the handicapped stalls, every stall. And I thought to myself, "What a great idea," because I may not think I need the handicapped stall, but maybe I do need some help. I that's a bit of a, "I wasn't expecting that answer today," but it's that idea of, how can we adapt our world to make it more age-friendly?
And you hear that banter about age-friendly communities, UNO, the University of Nebraska Omaha is an age-friendly university. What does that really mean? And why can't we make all of the United States age-friendly? So that whether I'm your son's age, or my age, I can still navigate my environment.
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Where my mind went with that is, yesterday I had a call with an internet friend. So, I haven't met him in person. And I am on one of his consultant platforms. So he has a platform where he matches up mentees with mentors. And I was an early mentee on his platform about five years ago, paying for it so I could have access to smart people who would give me advice and I could ask specific things. And then I became a mentor afterwards, and I give away free pro bono advice. And he said, "You know what I want to do next?" I said, "No." He goes, "Well, I want to make a platform for parents to talk to other parents who've already had experience with the pain point that the mentee has." And I said, "I love it." I said, "I'll be a paid parent, and I'll be a parent for things that I feel comfortable talking about."
And where I thought about, how great would it be if there was a simple platform? And maybe we do it in person. But in every city or every county, there's a group of five to 15 adults who are aging. And people, they talk about things without other people not having to ask questions if they don't feel comfortable. So you could almost listen to them. So if I were 70, but I felt like I was going on 80, and I was getting scared, my kids weren't close by, I could hear about all of those things. I feel like that would be so comforting.
Julie Masters: It would be, wouldn't it? And the thing about aging that we know is, as people get older, they become less alike, as opposed to more alike. And we tend to lump older people together as a group. And yet it couldn't be further from the truth. It maybe is a little easier for children because, okay, we know that kids are developmentally going through this, but as people age, they've already done that. Now they're onto a new chapter. I love that idea.
And maybe we talked about this, but the grandmother's bench in Zimbabwe, and the idea of these older members in the community, they've already been trained as volunteers, they sit on a bench, and then people come and sit down next to them on the bench, and they talk about what's going on in their lives. And it's generally challenges. And offering advice, helping them to see things in a little different way.
Peter Murphy Lewis: That's cool.
Julie Masters: And that's what you do, right? In terms of storytelling, you allow people to see things in a different way. Maybe they're uncomfortable sharing their story, and yet they thought, I never thought of it that way.
Peter Murphy Lewis: There's a podcast that I just discovered in the last two months, I think it's called "On a Bench." And it's a gentleman who starts recording before he goes down and sits down next to somebody. They don't know that he's recording. Obviously, he wouldn't put them on if they didn't accept-
Julie Masters: He gets permission. Okay, so I hope so.
Peter Murphy Lewis: And he sits down and he says, "Hi, I'm doing a podcast that's a hundred percent anonymous. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?" And the person says yes, and then he has this conversation with someone anonymous, and it's really, really fun.
Julie Masters: Well, think about how people, isn't that interesting? Think about people who, on airplanes, and they'll tell their life story, or they get their hair cut, or they're at-
Peter Murphy Lewis: Taxi drivers. I remember the '90s talking about my problems with my girlfriend with the taxi driver.
Julie Masters: And the thing is, anonymity really allows for an openness that people may not have with anyone else.
Peter Murphy Lewis: How do we do that in the aging space, since you don't have, your community gets smaller, at least from a distance point view? When I was an HIV/AIDS caseworker, I worked mostly with undocumented Latino populations, some African population, and I thought they were never going to accept this Midwestern, waspy boy from Kansas. And it was completely the opposite. They loved the fact that I don't live in their neighborhood, I don't go to their church, they don't see me at the nursing home. And they didn't feel any judgment by me, because I didn't know what they felt inside of their own communities. We always have a joke-
Julie Masters: You're like that cousin from Ohio.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Well, as a Lutheran, we always make the joke, "I only smoke when my Lutheran peers aren't around, so I'll smoke in front of a Catholic."
Julie Masters: For heaven's sakes, I've never heard that before.
Peter Murphy Lewis: How do we find something like that for seniors?
Julie Masters: In living in long-term care, or in the community?
Peter Murphy Lewis: Either, I guess.
Julie Masters: Well, I think sometimes you have to create a space that would allow for that conversation. And that space needs to be accessible. That space needs to be a place where... I love that, I smoke in front of my Catholic friends, but not my Lutheran friends. I'm still back there. A place where people can go and feel comfortable.
But there's also something, Peter, where, and this is your gift, you're very approachable, and it's having people who are approachable. Who there is no varnish, right? The unvarnished, "This is who I am. Take me as I am." And people feel comfortable.
You know, I'm gonna, if it's all right... When you talked about HIV/AIDS, even when I was teaching, and I've been teaching death and dying for a hundred years, and bringing in folks from Nebraska AIDS project, and they would come in and share their stories. And the thing is, at the time, there wasn't the cocktails that allowed them to live longer lives. And so, it really was just a grace moment to hear their stories. And we just realized there's people, when they had Covid, was such at its height, or you have other conditions where, when it's hospice, where people can share their story, and how much they want to share their story. But is there someone that's willing to listen?
And I think we do that sometimes with older folks, don't we? With just us and them as opposed to we. And when we can go face-to-face and, "Tell me your story?" How beautiful that can be. Again, back to this idea of, can I create a space? Can I find a place where people can go to where they can have conversation, but not in a... There was a wonderful article yesterday that I came across about Helen Mirren. She said, "Young people are so condescending. And my husband and I may walk down the sidewalk and people say, 'Isn't tha cute?'" How often do we do that with a young couple? "Isn't that cute?" We would never do that with a young couple. So, even rethinking our approach.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Now I remember, it's related to your conversation about bringing in people with HIV/AIDS, and this is probably between gerontology and psychology, but I think that it's different when you're aging than when you're young. And I have two people in my life who have terminal illnesses. One of them is a terminal illness that no one understands, and there's no real solution. It's chronic regional pain syndrome. It's called the suicide disease.
Julie Masters: Because they reach a point they can't do it anymore.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Mmhmm. It feels like your hand and your feet, your extremities are in a boiling pot of water. And if you amputate it, it moves to another extremity. And so I'm wondering how this is for aging, or for seniors, not knowing, the uncertainty is more painful than knowing. So when I worked with HIV and AIDS, the majority of my clients weren't at the same stage of fear that I am with people that I know who don't really know. And I wonder if part of our fear of aging and death in the United States is because sometimes it's sudden, and I wonder if it's because we're this productivity culture, or this anxious society that we have, that that anxiety of the uncertainty makes us more afraid of aging than others.
Julie Masters: Well, it's a question that I ask my students frequently. "What are you concerned about in terms of aging?" And it's everything from physical issues, to cognitive issues. It was interesting, one student yesterday said being bored. They just seem like they're bored. To losing independence. And there's a whole slew of things that people can be concerned about. But I think in part because the examples that we've provided to people have been limited. That's why I like the Book of Charlie, because here's a guy that challenge after challenge after challenge, and yet found a way through resiliency to get past those challenges.
I think we need just as we teach people how to be young people, there's opportunity there for education on, "Here's how you can look at your own aging in a different way." If we took more of an active approach to our own aging, some people already do, but just to say, "Doggone it, I'm going to figure this out, and I'm going to figure out a way that I can still have meaning and purpose." And some of the organizations I know that are really, in terms of their own mission vision statements are, how can we give people a sense of meaning and purpose? What sorts of things can we do that would allow them, you hear people say living their best lives, but I think that's true. I can still live my best life even if I'm 90, and incapacitated, because if I can still give to someone else.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Dr. Masters, thank you so much. I told Jalene - for those of you who are listening, we're at Nebraska Health Care Association, I hadn't mentioned that before. And Dr. Masters, you were one of my favorite guests that she introduced me to two or three years ago.
Julie Masters: Wow.
Peter Murphy Lewis: I feel like I could have this conversation without a microphone for a couple hours and just follow you around and pick your brain. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Julie Masters: Well, Peter, I would say I could do the same thing with you, because you've given me some things to think about that I'm going to take back to class tomorrow, and to share with the students that we visited. And this idea of, how do you create your story? You really have a gift, and I'm grateful that you would share a little bit with me. So thank you.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Thank you. That's a wrap on "People Worth Caring About," born from the documentary Built to Keep the Stories Going. Shout out to Nebraska Health Care Association and Jalene Carpenter for helping launch it, and to Ohio and New Mexico for making future seasons real. Watch the docuseries online, or at peopleworthcaringabout.com. And if this episode meant something to you, leave a review. It matters. Take care of yourself and the people worth caring about.
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