Hospice-excitement and confusion

[handyrn]

I am a new hospice nurse. I am so excited! I have mucho nursing home, home health, and geriatric experience, and was super excited to get this job. I have good assessment skills, but little acute experience. I was reading some of the hospice posts and am realizing that I have a LOT to learn. However, what I think I have to learn is the textbook stuff, and that is the easy part. I am doing that. I have been assigned 2 of my own patients now after being in orientation for 2 weeks. And the hospital I work for is very good about helping me out with anything I need such as questions, or if I want someone to see my patients with me because I am not sure of something, they are very accomodating about sending someone with experience with me. So far it has been a great experience and I feel like I am "at home" in this setting.

I felt, however, that part of my due diligence included reading the stickies on the hospice forum. I didn't make it through very many, which brings me to my question. There are threads on the forums with a contributor by the name of Michael, with a username something like req_red. I found that after reading his posts, I now need to just stop and process his posts in my mind. His few posts have given me a lot to think on. I love it! What I am wondering is, who is this person? More specifically, he referenced some writings or books that he has. What are these? I really want to read more of his work. Does anybody know the titles of any of his books or articles?

Thanks!

Oh, and by the way, get ready! Since I am a new hospice nurse, I am going to have a lot of questions and foresee posting a lot of them on here.