Difference in Acute and Chronic

Tish88 · Oct 16, 2011

Acutes are done in the hospital and chronics in the dialysis clinics.

As per hours for each, when I worked acutes my "normal" day would be a 11 hour day with doing 2 patients in the same hospital. If I had to go to a different hospital for my second patient, it would be longer due to travel time and having to disinfect both machines post treatment, which takes about an hour.

Also, being an acute, you take call. My longest call day was 22 hours of continuous working (meaning no breaks). When I did acutes, I worked at major trauma hospitals, so I was always being called in to do treatments. Many times I would leave for the day, arrive home and get called back out for a stat treatment or I would get in bed at night ready to fall asleep and my pager would go off!!

I loved acutes - I did this for 18+ years before I went into the chronic unit.

With chronics, it depends on the clinic and how many shifts of patients your clinic does. If you are only doing 2 shifts it is about 10.5 hours and if it is 3 shifts, it could be 14-15 hours. All clinics are run differently.

As for travel with acutes, that depends on how many acute contracts your company has and with how many hospitals. My company covered over 20+ hospitals, so we were very busy. The acute team was divided up into areas, so I didn't have to go to all 20+ hospitals. The most I drove for a hospital was 75 miles 1 direction. Part of my mileage would get paid and some times, my travel time would get paid if it was to assist another acute team that needed help. This was my choice to do.

BernieRN · Oct 16, 2011

Tish 88,

Thanks for your response! The possible job interview is with FMC- and I am reading a lot here...and it worries me that they are going to send me many miles away for training and/or the job.

I do not like driving at all, especially in the winter- although I wouldn't mind if it were just the local hospitals and facilities.

Thing is, I could ask them about this while having the phone interview, but it is sounding like they are possibly not up front about where training is and where you would travel, even when asked in the beginning.

I really think I would like dialysis and don't want to pass up this possibility- as there aren't many jobs to begin with around here and I am unemployed. Been out of college since May of last year and it is looking pretty grim!

I'll keep reading and see if I can find any more good info on this particular company.

Thanks again!

Bernie

loveu123 · Oct 17, 2011

Chronic is more predictable although an emergency could happen and make your day go bad. You have techs performing most of the treatment while you supervise. Dialysis nurses are actually employed by the hospital at my job so we pretty much take over the pt from their nurse and give all meds taht are able to be given while in HD. You could be giving feeding through peg tubes, ng tubes to doing a whole lot. We accept pts straight from PACU and pts from cath lab after cardiac cath and have to dialyze and monitor the pt at the same time. We do a lot of blood transfusions which is not done in the chronic unit. You don't have the same pt all the time in acute( However some pts are frequent flyers and get to be well known in the hospital). We also have to interpret and monitor telemetry in my unit. Some nurses prefer chronic because it is more predictable. I prefer acute because i get do do my own treatment as opposed to a tech doing it in the chronic. You also get to practice most of your nursing skills in acute which will make it easier to transfer to the floor if you choose to do so in the future. I work at a major teaching hospital that gets most trauma pts and I learn so much working there. I hope you find what you like.

CocoaGirl · Oct 18, 2011

FMC is famous for not being totally up front with potential employees about hours, traveling & training. Only certain facilities are training facilities & if you are hired for a different facility you WILL have to travel to the training facility for some of your orientation. Ten hour shifts often turn into 14+ hour shifts because a third shift gets added. Sorry, but this is reality at FMC.

BernieRN · Oct 18, 2011

Thanks to all for the replies!!! I appreciate it VERY MUCH!

Bernie

Marshall1 · Oct 18, 2011

If you don't want to travel for training etc. then FMC is NOT the place for you. The company overall is solid but they are BIG into travel..never understood it and it was THE reason I ended up not taking a position w/them after a few days of orientation. They are also famous for not telling you a lot of this during the interview and then of course after you get started you find out.

BernieRN · Oct 18, 2011

Thanks Marshall1!

That's pretty much all I needed to know. I have read things of that nature on here and wanted it clarified. Not even going to mess with them.

I just wish I could find a job...I feel like I am running out of time, with over 1.5 years out of school. Stressful to say the least, and self supporting!

Bernie