Fresenius - transferring from chronic to acute setting

Specialties Urology

Published

Hi all!

I was recently offered a position to work at a Fresenius chronic clinic in the greater Phoenix area as an RN. I am potentially interested in transferring to an acute setting at Fresenius whenever possible, but I heard that I need to have experience in the chronic setting before transferring to acute. Do any Fresenius RN's out there know how long Fresenius requires a new chronic RN to work in this setting before switching to the acute setting?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

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Hi Jucicool, I am a FMC RN here at So. California. If you are new to dialysis it is best to start in Chronic setting where you can explore and learned with another experienced nurse and dialysis technicians. Remember, Acute HD RNs work more independently, they are expected to know at least basic HD machine trouble shooting, AVF and Graft access cannulation techniques, and how to intervene when intradialytic complications arises (hypotension, cramping, etc.). Once you started working as an FMC employee, here in California, we need to stay at least 6 months in chronic before we can transfer to another modality such as Acute HD or PD. Hope this helps.

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As rjgusa said, 6 months experience is probably the least you want before you are on your own...at least in the chronic you have a lot of heads to bounce ideas off with. Acutes you are by yourself and a lot of times on off shifts. I am sure they have resources, but you have to pretty savvy to do all by yourself. Give yourself some time also to know if you even like dialysis, it is not for everyone.

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Thanks for your responses! That will be very helpful in making my final decision about this position.

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I went right to acutes. Per CMS guidelines you have to have 6 mos of dialysis experience before being the only dialysis nurse in a hospital. So orientation for 6 months. If you are a new grad you have to have 1 year - I started with FMC last July and the first 8 weeks were classroom and clinic - learning how to string machines, cannulate, start and terminate treatments etc...in Sept I started in the hospital, and worked my way from observing, to treating with my preceptor in the room, to her doing a tx in an adjacent room, then in a different room down the hall, to doing my own txs with someone else in the hospital. I started taking call in February, just one night per week, with my preceptor as a backup. Starting in March I started real call, and and weekend call. If you have nursing experience (I had 2 years of med/surge and PCU) it is totally doable.

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Specializes in LTC, geriatric, renal.

Wow - I did not know about those CMS guidelines. I started an acute position as a RN new to dialysis and was put on call 3 months after my start date. It seemed fast for me but I did it. It was hard but I did it.

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Wow - I did not know about those CMS guidelines. I started an acute position as a RN new to dialysis and was put on call 3 months after my start date. It seemed fast for me but I did it. It was hard but I did it.

How long ago? I believe the guidelines have changed in the last year or two because several of my coworkers were not subject to that guideline and they were hired in the last 2 years.

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Specializes in LTC, geriatric, renal.

I started in 2015

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