Move to Dialysis or stay in LTC?

[Sierra_ellyse]

So I am a relatively new grad, I've been working in a LTC facility since February but have been looking for an acute care position since December. The area I am in has little opportunity for acute care jobs so I started looking elsewhere. I have an interview for a dialysis job in a big city and hope to move to critical care eventually but know that may take several years of gaining experience and working my way into a hospital system. My question is if dialysis is considered acute care nursing experience? If I got this job I would plan on keeping it for at least a year or two but don't want to leave my LTC job and start fresh if the experience is going to be considered the same. Has anyone moved from dialysis to med-surg/critical care easily? any info would be great thanks!

[SmilingBluEyes]

Dialysis can be acute (in hospital) or outpatient (clinic, Home dialysis). I made the move from LTC to clinic/outpatient dialysis almost 3 years ago and no regrets. It is a different skill set---not harder than LTC, just different. You will be on the move a lot and have to have great organization skills to keep up. It took me about a year to feel comfortable and like I had a system down to stay organized. If you like doing the same things, mostly, day in and out, you will love it. If you hate routine, you might not like it.

In the hospital, you are going to have busy, busy days and slow ones. If the census is down, you will likely be reduced in hours or called off. Hospital dialysis is less predictable in that you may have a 10 or 12 hour day scheduled, and just about to get off, when a new admission comes up and now you have to stay to run their tx, meaning another 4 hours plus. Also, most dialysis nurses in the hospital are on-call at some point or another.

In the clinic, you work 9, 10 or 12 hour days ususually and are responsible for overseeing the treatment of 10, 12 or even 16 patients (depending on where you are). You will have technicians working under you, whom you will also oversee and supervise.

There is so much more I could say, but if you do a search, there is an excellent thread on what dialysis is like, day to day, outlining your duties and routine/schedule.

I wish you the best. Let me know if you have more specific questions.