Percy60

One thing to consider about hospice is how it can affect your personal life. Your social circle can get very small. Let's face it, no one(outside of nursing or hospice) wants to talk about death. I joke that it's like working for the IRS...at parties people run the other way. As a younger person, I think it's important to develop connections and experiences for your own personal growth not necessarily for professional growth. Hospice is absolutely the best for all the reason already stated. I'm committed to it until I can no longer see or drive but I don't think I would have lasted if I had started out at a younger age.(I started at 39 and have been working for 10 years in hospice.) Good Luck!!!

Our hospice has a mantra that helps with situations like this.... "People have the right to make bad choices"

I have found the book(Core Curriculum for the Generalist Hospice and Palliative Nurse) that is available through hpna.org(under publications) was very helpful.I also took a review class. Good Luck!

I work in a non profit with a census of 260. We get $2/hr for back-up call once every 16 days (430p-8a weekdays or 24 hour on sat/sun). Our visit rate is $55 but if it's over 2 hours, additional comp is negotiated with manager. Admissions is $120 for eval and clinical. Mileage is door to door. We have a full time weekday 3-11 nurse and another nurse who works Sat & Sun 8a-8p. The back-up nurse is the only one on call after 11p M-F and 8p S-S. We usually only get called out once or twice during the week but anything goes on the weekends. Our biggest problem is when our PM nurse or weekend nurse is off (PTO, illness). Then they make the full timers cover. Since both nurses get approximate 3-4 weeks(each) per year...this adds up. Our agency, as others, operates 24/7 yet we have less staff on the weekends. Do we have less patients? No. Do we have more problems? Yes. Patients are discharged from hospital on Th & Fr with increased needs & anxiety over the weekend which leads to lots of weekend visits. We usually have a mess on Monday morning. I think nurses should not underestimate their value. You should not be going out in the middle of the night, or spending time on an admission(3-4 hr) or paperwork for less than the average hourly pay in your area with your level of expertise. What other profession would do this? Oh, well, sorry for the rant. Anyway, after reading the other oncall compensations/schedules...I'm going to count my blessings.

I work in the Chicago area. We are on call every other month 8p-8a Sat & Sun. If we're busy(more than 3 visits), we get Monday off or we can take the $55 per visit and work Monday. We are paid $2.00 per hour for carrying the pager. We usually have 2-3 visits the entire weekend. We are fortunate to have a regular weekend day staff, weekday pm nurse and full triage staff. Our census is about 175 (and climbing). We also work a week or two during the year as a back up nurse if the regular on call nurse has car problems or too many patients to see. Usually during that week, we may make only one or two extra visits if that. Our holidays are done in 12 hour shifts and we only have to work one 12hr shift per year. Pretty good, huh?

My 2cents: I've been a hospice nurse for 7 years now and I am always learning new things. I try to remember that the loss of control and choices is also a reason for anger. I make sure that my patients know that they are in charge of their care. As long as it is safe, they can do what ever they want. Sometimes that helps. I also encourage family members to give them choices whenever possible since they often feel like things are slipping away. Finally, I find that my daily mantra is that "people have the right to make bad choices". It's not our place to tell someone how things or feelings should or could be. Thanks for the discussion.