Palliative Care/Hospice

[cinzia23]

I have been a critical care nurse for 10 years... I would like to become a Palliative Care/Hospice Nurse Practitioner.

I live in the Philadelphia area.

I have been receiving feedback that I could do either the Acute Care or Primary Adult/Gero programs.....

Is there anyone in this speciality that could provide feedback regarding which program you took and if you believe one is better than the other?

Thank you in advance for any help or suggestions!

[SopranoKris, MSN, RN, NP]

Most of the palliative care NPs I've met in our hospital are FNPs. There is one who is an ACNP, but she came from an ICU background and didn't want to work with the peds population just to get the NP, so she stuck with acute care. The school I'm attending in the Fall has a Palliative Care subspecialty with extra clinical hours (180 to 500 extra clinical hours) in palliative care. They allow students majoring in FNP, ACNP, AGNP, & AG-CNS to add the palliative subspecialty.

I would assume the track you pursue would be based on the hiring climate in your area and in which setting you'd like to work. Are you interested in inpatient (hospital) palliative care? Do you want to work at an independent hospice facility? Home hospice care? That might guide you in the direction you need to go. If you work in critical care, ask some of the palliative NPs which paths they chose. :)