Does home health ever take new grads?

ukstudent · Apr 21, 2008

I don't know if any do take new grads, but none should.

You have no one next to you to ask for help if your not sure about a change in your patient. You don't have all the equipment available for assessments that you do in a hospital, so it requires a higher level of assessment skills.

I would suggest at least a year of working as a nurse with the type of population that you would see when working in home health. In other words, don't work in post-partum if in home health you are going to be having geriatric patients.

The year should be off orientation as well. Finish your orientation and get a years experience under your belt. You will then have more work options.

momof2nurse · Apr 21, 2008

You know, it's crazy, but schools should really inform their students about job prospects BEFORE graduation.

I graduated thinking I would be interviewing hospitals and places, picking the right one for me. Yeah right!

I have since learned that as a new grad, your options are extremely limited. Only certain places will hire you: those that can afford to train you. I have tried getting jobs everywhere you can think due to a schedule conflict with kids & husband and needing 8 hour shifts.

I tried home health (they laughed when I said I was a new grad!!!), school nurses (desperate, but told me to call them back in a year), rehab hospitals (said they don't have the resources to train new grads), nursing homes (they prefer LPNs and told me their RNs need to be experienced since they are more supervisory), a doctors' office (I was getting desperate and they still said they wanted someone with experience), a psych hospital (they questioned my reasons for wanting to work there, saying I should have med-surg experience first just in case a patient has a medical problem), and many more.

I graduated in Dec, passed my boards in Feb and started looking the beginning of Feb. I have yet to find a job that offers 8 hour shifts.

If I could do 12 hour shifts and work in med-surg, I could get a job today....

I think you might have to resign yourself to working at least a year on med-surg in a hospital.

As far as the atmosphere, I think you would be hard pressed to find ANY job where you work with people that doesn't have cliques and gossip and personality clashes.

elkpark · Apr 21, 2008

I don't know if any do take new grads, but none should.
You have no one next to you to ask for help if your not sure about a change in your patient. You don't have all the equipment available for assessments that you do in a hospital, so it requires a higher level of assessment skills.
I would suggest at least a year of working as a nurse with the type of population that you would see when working in home health. In other words, don't work in post-partum if in home health you are going to be having geriatric patients.
The year should be off orientation as well. Finish your orientation and get a years experience under your belt. You will then have more work options.

ITA -- there probably are some HH agencies out there that will hire inexperienced nurses, but they are not doing you any favor by hiring you under those circumstances ...

I also agree that it is a shame that students graduate from so many NSs with expectations that are so different from the reality they are going to encounter. I know some of us have discussed that on other threads here; I'm not sure what the answer is ...

caliotter3 · Apr 21, 2008

While many, if not most, home health agencies require one to two years experience, there are some agencies, or local offices of agencies, that will hire nurses without experience. That is not to say that this is a good practice. I don't recommend that someone go into home health right out of school unless they know that they are going into some excellent support system. This almost never happens. It can be very unnerving to go into someone's home knowing that you are "it". This takes getting used to, no matter how much experience you have under your belt. You can call your office to speak to a supervisor if you have any questions or emergencies. But if you have a big problem, you have to figure out what to do while you are waiting to get a call back. One time I called my agency on a Saturday morning, got the answering service, and the on call nurse didn't return my call until I had been home for two and a half hours. By that time I had made my own decision about the problem at hand. All I did was to report to her what happened and what I had done about it. One of my bosses told me one time that if there was an emergency, to call 911 and have the patient transported. She said that was the best way to handle these situations, rather than waiting for a call back from a supervisor. So, you see, it is you making the decisions. Even though your nursing supervisor is supposedly only a phone call away.

As far as the working relationships with others, it can be the same in home health as in other jobs. On cases where there are several nurses who have worked with a patient for a long time, there can be twisted ways of doing things. When you are new, the other nurses may not accept you, and they can make it so miserable for you that you leave the case. This happens. It is less frequent in home health than in other areas, but it does happen. You have to learn how to deal with others you meet on the job no matter where you end up working. For that matter, if you don't interact with other nurses, you may find some doozy situations with patient family members. These people can drive you crazy if you let them. That is the key. You can't let the behavior of others define how you do your job. If you do decide to try home health, I hope that you have enough experience so that you have some confidence in your abilities, and that you find the right agency to offer you the working conditions that will be conducive to your success.

jjjoy, LPN · Apr 21, 2008

You know, it's crazy, but schools should really inform their students about job prospects BEFORE graduation.

How about telling prospective students as well? Yes, prospective students do need to do their own research as well, but schools should be a reliable resource. It can feel a bit like bait and switch when recruiters emphasize the wide variety of enviable non-bedside Nursing Jobs out there... specialty clinic nursing, advanced practice, etc... and only later mention that to be eligible for most of these jobs require that the nurse work for at least a few years at the bedside. And that those enviable non-bedside jobs are more difficult to come by and that the biggest demand is for the draining bedside work. And that bedside work is not only hard, but that it's often understaffed. That's it's more than just a hoop to jump through or the 'real' final year of a nursing education, but that it's often a trial-by-fire to be survived.

I wonder if that kind of recruiting emphasis is more prevalent for BSN and accelerated nursing programs as opposed to ADN programs... anyone have a different experience?

pie123 · Apr 21, 2008

I'm sort of interested in that. I'm finding that working on a unit with 30 plus different nurses on staff is just not my cup of tea. There are cliques, clatches, gossip constantly -- I just cannot be around different people each shift, some travelers that don't want to invest in any sort of work camraderie or relationships with anyone -- I dont' know. I also just can't take the noise and the crowding.
Anyway, I've got about 6 months now -- wondering if ANY home health agencies would at least consider training someone newer.
I know the grass isn't always greener, but I'm really wanting to get out of the current "yard" I'm in now.

I sent you 2 private messages.