Part-time in home health??

[FuturePsychNP]

Ok, so in a month or so I'll be quitting my full-time hospital job, and I'm eager to do so as like many nurses it's not for me. I have another offer doing something besides nursing that I'm going to do. It won't, however, require me to work every weekday.

I'm in a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner master's program, and when I graduate I'll go to work in that capacity. (I've finished two semesters, and I have three more to go.) I'm really looking forward to this since I only got into this to be a mental health provider. Until then I believe it would behoove me to maintain some nexus with nursing, and just to inform there are no psych facilities around here so I won't relocate until I finish my master's.

A state agency has part-time, rural home health positions that seem to constantly be open. I've considered applying to maintain that nexus. Here are some caveats. I work in a medical unit (although I have emergency experience too). I say medical because, although theoretically it is med-surg, we never have surgical patients. The only one I can ever recall getting was an outpatient cholecystectomy who woke up with nausea and stayed constantly nauseas for the next four or five days. Because she was very old she was admitted to my unit to maintain hydration. It's a very small 28 bed hospital that because no one else wants to work at the demand causes it to pay about 30% more than others in the area so you may see the environment.

To be truthful, I really don't know anything about outpatient surgical recovery or wound treatment or even stomas. Even now when I have patients with wounds I defer them to someone else, and I make patient assignments so that's within my purview. When I did a couple of home health rotations back in BSN community health I saw that wounds were a frequent target of treatment. With respect to things of a medical nature, acute or chronic, there isn't really anything I'm not comfortable with. I'm also pretty comfortable with pharmacology. I don't mind and am not uncomfortable with putting a bandage on a wound, but offhand I don't what type EBP suggests using. What I know about wounds is, "if it's wet, dry it - if it's dry, wet it." Although, from experience, if an arm was torn off, the bowels eviscerated, a skull cap shaved off, or someone shot you in the chest I do know what to do about that from both a RN and EMT-P perspective. Not really a home health matter, lol.

Any advice on doing this or not doing this? Good idea, bad idea?

[tktjRN]

Go for it!! The majority of patients I have are wound care, but we see a lot of medication management teaching too. You're obviously a smart cookie.. I don't think you'll have any problems. I'm sure the nurses you will work with will be excellent resources.

Good luck!