Leaving the bedside to do home health and study FNP

[estherm_590]

Hello everyone! I've been a nurse for 5 years, and been working at a hospital telemetry unit for almost 4 of those years. I love nursing but I've always wanted to have more responsability and do more decision making over my patients treatment and care. That's why I decided to study family nurse practitioner, I'm just finishing my first semester, and I gotta say so far I love it but the hospital I work for have made my life a living hell. First they said they would help me with the schedule, but all they wanted to do was give me the night shifts which I tried but I was only sleeping 3 hours a day. Then they started to give me fridays 7-3 , saturdays double shift 7-11pm and same for sundays. I did that a couple of month and although I had 4 days off to concentrate on the classes, those double shifts were killing me, I used to come home crying, my hair was falling out like crazy, there were shifts where I would only eat one time a day, and only pee one time a day too because of the lack of time, there was always something to do and family members following you, they would give me 12 patients because pf the lack of staff on the weekends, the management in that hospital is just awful. And my supervisor is a FNP and even tho she knows how hard it is she still doesn't help or care. I've have had enough, I need time to concentrate on the classes, to sleep, TO EAT AND PEE, to connect with my family and friends. So I just quit, I got a job in a home health agency which has great reviews, and I start next week. I know I'm not gonna make the same amount of money, but at least I will get more time off since I've heard is very flexible timewise. Also I want to connect more with my patients, not just drop off some medications and then run to the other room or to answer the call light. I want to be able to educate them well enough about their health (which is an important part of FNP), I want to give emotional support and listen to them, most of these patients dont have families that care for them. I want to be able to provide HOLISTIC CARE. Anyway I'm happy about the decision I made, I'm just a little scared since I've only worked as a nurse in the hospital, and I have no home health experience. Anyone can share their experience on leaving the bedside to do home health ? Btw pardon my english, I'm from Puerto Rico

[mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN]

that's too bad your hospital wouldn't work with you. Mine is great with working with nurses back in school. I did home health for a little while and I loved it.

[cleback]

I think at this point the first and foremost concern is that the home health agency will give you a schedule that works with your school and not drive you crazy. Providing holistic care and such is nice but probably depends on the company. I know some home health nurses that have a very large caseload and can really only spend time on the concern that referred them to home health (and the required Medicare documentation of course). And the making less money part... as long as you have enough to live on, it'll be ok. This job is only temporary until you graduate.

Good luck!

[estherm_590]

I believe I will be able to arrange my own schedules and the visits to the patients. And you are right, as long as the money is enough for me to live on, I will be fine. Thank you so much!