GerryG

I've been a hospice nurse for a long time and I've never started a PIV in all these years. We use either central lines or subcutaneous sites. We will not maintain a PIV in the home.

I would think your experience in pain management would be very helpful. Many of us entered this field with very little experience. I recently hired a nurse who had not been in clinical work for 7 years and she is really working out well. I think it is really about what you feel and whether this work is what you want to do. The rest will come.

I would recommend applying for jobs and when you get an interview - if it is looking like a positive interview, then you should ask if you could go out with a nurse for a day. They may be thinking that they want to interview you before they allow you to go out with one of their nurses. I have had interviewees ask to go out on visits before they accepted a job and I have offered this, as I don't want someone to accept a job they are not sure about.

The nurse practice act applies to hospice just as well. Technically you do need an order. We have dressing application orders on our standing orders which covers us. In the past what I have done is to initiate the treatment and then write an order. The last thing a doctor wants to be called on is something regarding a dressing since this is one area that they realize nurses know more about than they do.

Wow if people are making that to start, what we are paying doesn't seem like so much.

I never said anything about the Cape.

I think that I would rather not say for confidentiality sake, but I am in a city of about 500,000 in the east. I am not near any major metropolitan areas.

I'm new to this forum but not new to hospice. I've been doing this for about 12 years and am now in management. Can some of you that have been in this field for years share about how much $ you are making? We are starting people out at anywhere from 23-27/hr. We have a nurse that has been here for a while that is making 32/hr, which seems like a lot to me. I have never thought of hospice nursing as being a lucrative job.