Peritoneal Dialysis monthly Clinic visits

Specialties Urology

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I was wondering how PD nurses schedule the clinic visits. Do you schedule your visit separately or together with the doc? (we have one nephrologist) Right now I schedule them at a time convenient for the doc to coincide with when he does weekly rounds with the HD pts. Which means I have PD pts that day along with 4-5 HD pts. I'm feeling very overloaded on those days!! and yes, I have asked repeatedly to have less HD pts. those days but... that could take me on another long spiel. I have 7 PD pts to manage along with chronic hemo pts and doing acute care. I just don't feel like I am giving enough attention/time to the PD pts when they come in, esp. when I only see them monthly, I can feel the eyes of the other staff burning into me when my HD pts alarms are going off and their time is done and I'm still with the PD pt. Any suggestions or how you do things would be great!

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Specializes in Dialysis.

well, crap! i can't believe you have HD pts to begin with. Are you a PD nurse or a kind of in-the-middle nurse?

we have separate wings of the clinic for our PD and home-hemo. Our PD dept has 30 patients; they are divided into 4 groups and each makes one appt for the month. The doc sees the morning shift hemo, goes to lunch, comes back and sees the PD pts, then goes back to the floor for the PM shift hemo. If possible, they do their labs, social work and dietary stuff that day, too.

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You made me giggle! I think it's crap too! I usually refer to my PD pts as my hobby. You should see my pt load when I'm training a new PD pt. HD pts in the morning, hopefully get to lunch, train in the afternoon, and if I'm really unlucky for the day, go back and take off some HD pts and chart on all. But, anyway thanks for the ideas, we usually get the Sw and dietician at the same time too.

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The company that runs the local dialysis clinics (DaVita) has a separate PD clinic staffed by 2 RNs who do nothing but PD. I think your set-up is unmanageable, and it sounds like you are getting no help (the other staff can't or won't help you with the HD pts on the PD days?) And acutes on top of all that?!

My advice would be to renogotiate the conditions of your employment.

Good luck!

DeLana

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