Balancing hospice and family??

MissIt · Jan 17, 2011

It sort of depends on the area where you live and the specific hospices there. Some have on call RNs that take the majority of after hours/weekend call and the case managers for those companies have a much more regular M-F type schedule. Other hospices require their nurses to take turns with the on call. Others have inpatient facilities and those nurses generally work 12 hour shifts (most places that do 12 hours shifts consider three days to be full time). If you live in a bigger area, you might have a lot of hospice programs to pick from.

SoCalRN1970 · Jan 17, 2011

It depends on alot. Including the agency you work for and their own policies. Although for the most part hospice agencies all have the same goals, there are little bits of fluff that vary from company to company like on call hours, case load, work area etc.

I balance my home life with a few simple rules.

#1 if I am not on call. No notes, patient info or work related anything is allowed in my home. This is my sanctuary and I refuse to share it with work. ( I keep my goods locked up in our garage.

#2 Weekly Pedicures! I know it sounds lame, but any kind of pampering is good. It's a relatively cheap expense here in Cali.

#3 Time with family. Weather it be on the weekend, dinner whatever

#4 Hobbies that have NOTHING to due with Hospice. I have a friend who is a fab photographer who also is a hospice RN. She does end of life pictures.. meaning as patients decline she will have consents signed and take meaningful photos for the family. It's all gratis, but she plans on doing a book or whatnot. This hobby in my eyes is wonderful.. but it also has caused her to be burned out.... take pictures of things that are meaningful, not related to you work. This would be a huge difference for my friend. OR... If she saved her pics and worked on them after retirement... ( which is soon )

I ride my bike on weekends with my spouse. I also have done 60+ miles rides and this allows a good cleansing of my mind and stress..

I have been doing this 8 years and I promise you the only time I thought I was burned out was due to a bad or non supportive work environment.

Irisheyessmilin · Feb 1, 2011

At the Hospice agency where I work we are on Mon-Fri 8a-5p. We take turns on call schedule. Usually works out to be 7-8 days a month..for example I am on call every Mon and one weekend a month Fri-Sun. We used to do Mon-Sun straight but there was alot of burnout among the nurses. We found splitting things up works better. When we are on call we have a designated NOC (nurse on call) and a AOC (admin on call) with the NOC taking the main calls and AOC for overflow and well admin concerns.Hope this helps.

hospicernsrgr8t · Feb 2, 2011

At my agency, we work usually work M-F...with the exception of one weekend a month and one major and one minor holiday. We are salaried, so some days I am at home early....other days are late and I never really know how it is going to be, because patients can change so fast. It depends on your case load...some weeks all your patients are stable, the next week they are all at end of life or having major problems with symptom control which can take more than your 8 hour day to get through, plus documentation. We have evening and night on call staff for those hours , so I never have to take call. Research how Hospice's in your area operate. Mostly, I feel that this position has many rewards that other nursing positions do not. I may not always know how it will be, but I know I am always where I really need to be. :hug::hug:

AstaRN · Feb 4, 2011

Like others said, some of it depends on the hospice you work for. When I first started in hospice 4 years ago, it was a start-up company. We had 20 pts and 3 case managers. The 3 case managers (me being one of them), the clinical director and the executive director all rotated 7 day call. I can honestly say that it sucked. I did work all the time. And getting called all hours of the night and then having to work the next day was awful. I remember one weekend, I made 24 visits, 4 of them being admissions. I didn't know any better because I had never worked in hospice before.

As the company grew, the amt of call decreased. We now have over 100 pts and 10 case managers. We have a primary on call nurse for week nights and one for weekends. We are required to do 3-4 days of call where we are "back up" on call if the pirmary gets busy. Some weekends I never get called. We also have an admissions nurse, so that keeps the case managers free to see their patients and not get bogged down w/ lengthy admits.

As far as regular schedule, I work M-F 8am-5pm. Most days I am done around 3. Sometimes it's later, occasionally it's earlier. What I really like about my schedule is that I'm able to eat lunch w/ my son who is in kindergarten once or twice a week. Also, it's flexible enough that I can schedule doctor/dentist appointments during work hrs if needed.

So, get the details up front when you interview w/ a hospice agency. I love the idea of weekly pedicures. What a great way to decompress!