by cjohn99

I am going to graduate soon and I am curious about Holistic nursing. Can you tell me what a typical day (I know, what's that??) in the life of a Holistic nurse is like? Do you still use meds, fluids, and invasive procedures? If not can you briefly explain other skills that are used. I am clueless. Thanks!

Re: A Day in the life of Holistic Nursing

I can only give you experience in a complimentary therapy office, not strictly holistic care.
I loved what I did, but the management was very poor at the office I was at and money was too tight. ONLY for those two reasons did I leave.

Basically in my office, my doctor I worked for used both traditional and complimentary therapies. For example. His big thing was chelation therapy. So much so that before I left his office I set up a research study site, strictly for chelation therapy.
My day consisted of bringing back patients, doing vitals, accessing a vein and running chelation therapy. But that was not the only therapy I did. I also did, plaquex (which is considered the rotor rooter of chelation therapy), H2O2 therapy (used commonly for people who felt infections coming on and had problems with antibiotics IE allergies), Vit C therapy (up to 100g of vitamin C was used for Cancer patients with astounding results! - Most commonly only treatment patient was using and they would go into complete remission!). Doctor also compounded his own medicines. Actual meds as well as complimentary meds and supplements. CoQ10 and Red Rice Yeast were very common.
I would monitor their IV therapy and eventually once complete I would DC the IV and set up their next appointment.
For a while the doctor had me doing consultations for Chelation. I am NOT a good salesman. I do believe it works in SOME people. But if there is a genetic trait for serious heart disease, then usually it won't do anything for the patient, and the end up spending thousands of dollars only to either die or have the exact thing they were trying to avoid (CABG). A good doctor (with a little better ethics than the doctor I worked for) would weed out those that did have a strong genetic history of heart disease and refuse chelation therapy for them.
This has only a new realization for me, after a recent death of a patient who had a STRONG genetic history of heart disease and after 3 years of both chelation and plaquex treatments her CIMT still showed her arteries at 90 y/o after all those treatments. After her death, I did some serious soul searching to realize that although it will work for some patients without strong genetic history, it will NOT work for all as the doctor I worked for would lead all patients to believe.
Okay - I kinda went off on a tangent there.
I am a holistic health practitioner. But I believe that holistic health should be a complimentary thing to traditional means. Because there are some cases we just can't fix.
*Stepping off my soap box*

Re: A Day in the life of Holistic Nursing

Jen,
Thanks for taking the time to write. There is a large hospital near me that has a new holistic cardiac care unit. If anyone else has any experience I would love to hear from you too. Again thanks!

Re: A Day in the life of Holistic Nursing

The day in a life of Holistic nursing? It will really vary on where you decide to work. I have worked with many Naturopaths and MD's that do Holistic care and they do different things.
The last place I worked was a large Naturopathic clinic with 4 ND's and 3 MD's on board. Each Doctor had their own Assistant, which could be an LPN or Medical Assistant. I was one of these at one point. My doctor saw 4-6 patients per day. I did very little in the check in part. Simple vitals and that was all. The rest of my day was spent answering phones, taking down messages, attaching them to the patient chart, handing the chart to the doctor, receiving and relaying the reply. Once in a while I would give a B12 injection. The doctor would basically interview the patient and give a list of recommended supplements.
I later did other things in the clinic as my education expanded and I performed various tests, such as Heidelberg, BTA, BIA, Cavitat and EAV.
I also started working in the IV therapy department, which was a huge area devoted only to IV's with a team only doing work related to IV's.

The place I am at now has only 2 doctors, both ND's and they are busy!
My doctor sees about 25 patients per day and is very hands on and uses me a lot. She does a lot of muscle testing, emotional release therapy, NAET and more. She also does typical medical practices such as full physical exams including Paps and has me helping with many things such as cultures, strep tests, UA's, blood draws, Ultrasound, Interferential, foot baths and IV therapy.
So, there are many options out there and no two clinics will be exactly the same in regards to how they utilize you.

Re: A Day in the life of Holistic Nursing

Jen, Chelation is definately not something to take lightly.
It can be good or it can be dangerous depending on the protocol of how it is done and who is overseeing it. It should be very customized to the patient and the patient should be constantly monitored, including blood tests to make sure there creatinine levels are where they should be.
They also need to be getting a very good mineral replacement intravenously in between sessions of Chelation.
It is something I am not fully sure about myself. I have similar reservations as you do.

Re: A Day in the life of Holistic Nursing

I guess I should clarify that the holistic position is in a telemetry unit. If any one works in something similair, please explain your duties. Thanks