[RNorBust]

Being a case manager is going to end up being what ever you make of it. When I was doing it I loved it. There are the hum drum days where there isn't much going on, but the blessing comes when your patient starts to decline and you are needed more frequently, you do more teaching, you spend time with this patient and their family and help them through the last phases.... It is so rewarding. I remember very clearly when I think I really fell in love with the job. I had a patient that was dying, and when she passed, her son in law said to me " thank all of you for what you have done. I am so impressed with it all that I hope some day you can do the same for me...." It is an incredible rush to have somebody thank you for helping them through the hardest time in their lives. I love that I had the time to do it. I may spend only 1 hour at some of the houses that I went to, but there was always that one or two that was starting to decline that I spent more time with. It is a pattern you develop when you have been in it long enough to have patients that you can care for from the time they are referred until the time they die. It is so nice to be able to spend 6 hours with a patient because they are in distress and you are there to ease there discomfort, anxiety, SOB, nausea, whatever the problem they have is... just call the others and reschedule. Anyway, I could spend all day on this subject.

[caliotter3]

With a serious back injury in your medical history, you are lucky to be working in nursing. If your current position is too much paperwork for you, perhaps you could consider some type of education position where you could get some satisfaction without the possibilities of personal injury. Maybe you could become a Certified Diabetes Educator. You have to pretty much consider that any nursing job with little or no patient contact (back injury) is going to involve a lot of paperwork. Good luck in finding something that allows you to express yourself as a nurse without exposing you to further injury. It can be done, just a little bit harder path to follow.

[RNKittyKat]

Louisepug, case management is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get... or when.