Interested in Hospice Nursing

[Kelly311]

Hi I’m a student and just trying to see if I would like this field.

If you can change anything about being a visiting nurse what would they be?

Have you ever ran out of medical supplies during a visit?

Can you get medical supplies delivered ahead of time to the patient?

Thanks Kelly

[happyRN29]

I love being a Hospice visiting nurse but as with any job there are certain difficulties to work around. I would change the atrocious amount of charting required, condense it, refine it, make it more realistic and pertinent to the type of visit or type of problem. I would require that the office be more proactive about supporting the field staff.

Supplies: yes I have not had needed medical supplies for a visit before. You have to learn to improvise, call coworkers for ideas if needed. Our agency has terrible organization/management of supplies so my experience may be worse than others.

Our office does not allow supplies to be sent to the patient, it has to be sent to the office, then the field staff distribute the supplies to the pts at visits. It would actually be a lot quicker and better if we could just send the supplies directly to the pts home. The last agency I worked for did allow supplies to go to ot homes and it was much better. Supplies could make it there in 1 to 2 days.

I've been a nurse 8 years. I've worked in LTC, home care (one on one), med surgery, and now hospice. Hospice is the most rewarding field I've been in and I genuinely love it. It is however very demanding because of all the 'on call' required. Every agency is different so make sure to ask for a realistic depiction of what 'on call' looks like. It can be very difficult to have good work-life balance working in hospice.