ER and schedule VS hospice and schedule?

[justanurse19]

Hi, everyone. I’m struggling on a career change decision. Right now I’m working at a small ER where there’s 1 nurse and 1 doctor. Sometimes we have a LPN, but rarely. It gets pretty stressful at times, but the work schedule is pretty great. It’s sort of like 3/2 split. Most I work in a row without picking up extra is 4, and every 4th week I get 7 days off. 

I was offered a hospice position that’s M-F 8ish-5ish, one call night a week and one call weekend a month with holidays off.  I’m a divorced parent but remarried and his schedule is 24-48 on and 48 off. I have two kids from a previous marriage and right now, I get them when I’m off work, and it’s a GREAT schedule when they’re out of school because I get 3-7 days in a row off with them when I get them. I’m also pregnant and worried about who’s keeping this baby once I go back to work. At first I thought the M-F would be best, and the ER is killing my spirit. Most days I handle it well, other days (most days) I wish I was doing anything else. Especially the days we are swamped and it’s just me and doc trying to handle everything. With hospice, my schedule will be more flexible in terms of being able to drop my kids off at school, take off if I need to, push my day in/out, make practices and games, etc according to the hiring manager, but it’s more days at work. And most people I’ve talked to said their stress levels went down after leaving the ER, and I’ve always wanted to do hospice after both of my parents were on hospice before their passing. I’m just worried about the M-F with call and throwing away the few days in a row off that I have with my kids especially when they’re out of school. I thought about going PRN at hospice first just to see, but I don’t want to add anymore on my plate being pregnant (it’s been a rough one)  and adding more days without my kiddos while I get used to it. 
 

just looking for advice from other mom nurses. Thanks for reading. 

[PoodleBreath]

Going to weigh in as an 8-5 hospice nurse. It's not uncommon to work 9-10 hour days, sometimes without breaks. The culture is kinder and more forgiving and you can step out for family issues but you have a specific number of patient visits you have to complete weekly or you're out of compliance. Hospice can go sideways really quickly. You may have a day set up to get through your patients and then all of a sudden you find yourself spending 2-3 hours with a patient in crisis.

We get a lot of ER nurses, and they love it and I think there are a lot of similarities in the culture, but it may not be what you're looking for, at least now, when you've got so much on your plate. The learning curve is steep.

[heron, ASN, RN]

Just want to add that “on call” could translate as out all night, depending on client needs which are notoriously hard predictable. Hospice shifts are nowhere near as controllable as other homecare or clinic jobs.

[Calm and collected]

I worked hospice for 13 years. I loved most of it but the on call wears on you. You can work a full day, start your on call at 5 and it is possible to be called out all night. As I got older, I found working 16 hours straight was too exhausting. It is impossible to predict when a crisis will happen in hospice.

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

1 hour ago, Calm and collected said:

I worked hospice for 13 years. I loved most of it but the on call wears on you. You can work a full day, start your on call at 5 and it is possible to be called out all night. As I got older, I found working 16 hours straight was too exhausting. It is impossible to predict when a crisis will happen in hospice.

Thats why I ended up leaving hospice. It started happening more and more

[Rionoir, ADN, RN]

I work PRN at an inpatient hospice facility. I would never be a case manager (which I'm assuming is what you're talking about since you would have on-call days). If you like hospice but want to do your shifts and go home, maybe see if there is an inpatient facility hiring near you. If you like critical care, you might like that better anyway.