Is this all there is?-revisited

What a great post. I hope I can find happiness in whichever nursing niche I choose. When reading so many negatives, something like this is a breath of fresh air.

Congrats! It is nice to find a good spot that you are happy with! I'm happy where I am now, some days more than others of course but at least at the end of the day I'm not crying! (I was before!).

I'm glad that you love your job, maybe once I get out of nursing school I can find that niche as well. Congrats!

Thanks for the update. It's always interesting to hear how people are progressing, and especially nice when things work out so well. Congratulations!

First off, congrats! That's awesome! And thanks for sharing!

Do you think it was necessary to have the inpatient experience prior to working home health? I ask because I've always enjoyed teaching but it seemed that most nursing positions that involved a higher percentage of teaching (not just the quick and dirty that is all there is time for in acute care) generally required some previous experience and warned those without previous inpatient experience that they wouldn't be prepared to work "alone" in the field and wouldn't be able to adequately assess patients or deal with emergencies... or were they just trying to keep the good jobs to themselves? By the way, it sounds like you have a very reasonable case load. Do know how normal that is compared to other home health agencies?

AIN'T IT GREAT? What other career has so many choices?

As a 'dyed in the wool' critical care nurse, any patient not attached to monitors really creeps me out.

A lot of my former ICU colleagues have made the move into Home Care & they love it also. My guess -- it appeals to the same type of personality but provides higher levels of patient interaction & more reasonable schedule. Good Grief, I even know someone who absolutely adores her job as a school nurse in a Middle School - how strange is that???

Nursing has so many different 'flavors' that everyone can find something to his or her taste.

To JJJoy

I too work in home health (about 8 years now) and love my job. Most HH agencies require at least a year of prior experience and there is a good reason for that. While there is a lot of talking and teaching going on there is also a lot of skilled care and complex tasking going on, and you will have no support staff immediately available to offer a second opinion or help in case something goes wrong (and things do go wrong sometimes). There is no way I could have done this job competently as a new grad, even after working three years on a med-surg unit I encountered new things in the home.

Most home health nurses don't want to "keep the good jobs to themselves", they would eagerly welcome talented nurse to their field. But we are realistic about the demands in home health and want patients to be well cared for. Get some hands on experience and then give home health a try. It's not for everyone, but when you like it you love it!

To JJJoy

I too work in home health (about 8 years now) and love my job. Most HH agencies require at least a year of prior experience and there is a good reason for that. While there is a lot of talking and teaching going on there is also a lot of skilled care and complex tasking going on, and you will have no support staff immediately available to offer a second opinion or help in case something goes wrong (and things do go wrong sometimes). There is no way I could have done this job competently as a new grad, even after working three years on a med-surg unit I encountered new things in the home.

Most home health nurses don't want to "keep the good jobs to themselves", they would eagerly welcome talented nurse to their field. But we are realistic about the demands in home health and want patients to be well cared for. Get some hands on experience and then give home health a try. It's not for everyone, but when you like it you love it!

JJOY:

I was just going to say that we should put that question out there to the experienced home health nurses, and she answered it. It's interesting, my preceptor and I had this same discussion yesterday because a brand new grad was hired straight out of school over a year ago. Even though she is doing well, my preceptor was talking about how much you learn while in the trenches of acute care to apply to the home health patient. I must say that so far there has been a lot of intense wound care that I never got to really do in the hospital, yes we did wound care, but not this chronic stuff on every patient. I really am enjoying it. It is really interesting (and a lot of time grossly interesting) to see how people live. Today we went in and there was out patient, hooked up to O2, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Scarey.

Feel free to pm me if you want to.

That's awesome for you! Let's go nurses...and kudos to knowing when the job was not a good fit for you....because, let's face it, sometimes that can go out and reflect in our care....Not saying that we don't care, but when the job isn't recharging and refreshing, it shows......

Good luck in your new role....