ErinS

ErinS BSN, RN

Hospice

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All Content by ErinS

  1. Risky Plans, but the cherry tastes good 65k in loans small background

    ErinS replied to Easyas123247's topic in Pre-Nursing Students

    Several things: 1. It is as easy to get an entry level nursing job with an associate's degree as with a BSN or MSN. Same pay in my state except a BSN or MSN can open career opportunities down the...

  2. Weekend On-Call Hospice RN Questions

    ErinS replied to TXNurseyRN's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    There are many weeks when I think 'I wish I only had 3 12's again'. In general though, my schedule is very flexible and I feel like a normal person working 5 8's. Another thing about hospice- if you...

  3. Comfort kits

    ErinS replied to Mandee's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    I actually am really lucky because although our administration does not approve of e-kits, they are fine with spending the money to have emergency meds on hand, even though it is close to $100 for the...

  4. Weekend On-Call Hospice RN Questions

    ErinS replied to TXNurseyRN's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    Our weekend on-call is salaried and actually make quite a bit less than the M-F pay per visit nurses. I think this job requires you to be the most confident in your skills and assessment. Our...

  5. Comfort kits

    ErinS replied to Mandee's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    Our administration feels that e-kits can not be used because they do not allow for individualization of plan of care that JC requires. Instead we usually provide a liquid narcotic, and lorazepam...

  6. Tips for working in the field

    ErinS replied to Cardiac-RN's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    I case manage and do my own admits, since we are currently short staffed. my days usually look like this: 8-9 I meet with the other nurses I work with and begin to figure out my schedule. 9-10 I...

  7. Innovative Ways to Help Both Family & Patient

    ErinS replied to nursejudy15209's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    One of the nurses I worked with had a sister who died. The hospice caring for her sister really pushed for continuous care. To my friend, who is a hospice nurse, this was very upsetting. Her...

  8. How to comfort patients?

    ErinS replied to Al25's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    This is something I had a really hard time with when I started in hospice. This is a really good chance to learn about therapeutic silence. This is a hard thing to be comfortable, but often for...

  9. Hospice help for in-home....

    ErinS replied to karleigh's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    I definitely agree with the previous posts. I have actually worked doing admits and case managing. When I was doing admits I often would do the follow up visit the next day. I learned early that I...

  10. Atropine 1% Eye Drops SL

    ErinS replied to Lexxie's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    Our current medical director is kind of funny about scopolamine and atropine gtts. He is fine with us using them but reminds us of the risk of psychosis. I have not ever seen this side effect...

  11. Do you visit hospice patients daily while in hospital?

    ErinS replied to AtlantaRN's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    In short, yes. The reason for this is I have found that our patients that are in the hospital for a diagnosis other than their hospice diagnosis have a lot of problems with symptom management. For...

  12. Get it off your chest! What's the rudest thing a doctor ever said to you?

    ErinS replied to vhern246's topic in General Nursing

    I had a pt who had a dropping bp, increasing pulse post intestinal surgery (who was 22 btw). Called the doc over and over and over to no avail. Finally called a hospitalist I knew and that liked me...

  13. Would I be a terrible person if . . . ?

    ErinS replied to Ruby Vee's topic in General Nursing

    It sounds Ruby like your mother may qualify for hospice if she is losing weight or having decreased intake. I find that our hospice dementia patients do better on hospice. We usually have our aides...

  14. Use of morphine and CPAP in hospice patient

    ErinS replied to Elizabeth Hanes's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    I would certainly question a switch like that, but understand that there may be some other issues here. Methadone and dilaudid are cheap, and fentanyl patches can be reasonable. It may be a money...

  15. Nausea

    ErinS posted a topic in Hospice, Palliative

    Hello everyone. I have a patient, 60 yo female with stomach cancer and drop mets throughout her abdomen, who has nausea most of the time, and usually throws up every 12 hours. I feel like we have...

  16. Nausea

    ErinS replied to ErinS's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    Thanks for the recomendations guys. I had actually never heard of droperidol before, but learned today that the healthcare system my hospice is a part of does not allow it's use. She did not...

  17. No Bowel Movement in Three Weeks

    ErinS replied to RN1981's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    Our MD used to also be a family practice doc, and he had samples of a medication called amitiza. It was very effective for this kind of thing without the terrible cramping and diarrhea you can...

  18. Changes to On Call Job Description

    ErinS replied to pixiec11's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    Well, maybe this will give a different persepctive. I work for a non-profit hospice with a census between 40-50 right now, although we are growing. We have 2 full time on call positions, although...

  19. S-BAR

    ErinS replied to Otessa's topic in General Nursing

    This was being used at my hospital where I first worked as a nurse and it is the way I learned to communicate on patients. I now work for a hospice, but I use this same format when leaving report on...

  20. Diagnoses you never thought you'd see?

    ErinS replied to KarafromPhilly's topic in General Nursing

    Calciphylaxis in a patient without renal failure. Supposed Creutzfeld-Jakob (today in fact!) without the dementia-first sx started 1 month ago Trisomy 13, 18, and a family with 2 children with a...

  21. Dilaudid via PICC line burns with bolus

    ErinS replied to sas15's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    We have had issues with patients on large doses of dilaudid with the same issues. Sometimes (especially if pt had allergies to other meds) we would add a med like ketamine which allows us to decrease...

  22. part time Rn casemanager, full caseload and Lvns in office

    ErinS replied to americanTrain's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    Yikes! I am super spoiled- we have a large RN office staff, and all full time RNs in the field (no lpns). Our management is trying very hard to had case managers just ahead of growing census. I am...

  23. Are hospitals deadlier in July?

    ErinS replied to us2uk4u's topic in General Nursing

    I spent 3 months in a teaching hospital as a travel nurse (with only 1 year of nursing experience): June, July, and August. In that time I taught several 1st years how to write orders, what fluids...

  24. Need some experienced nurses to help solve this problem

    ErinS replied to nsgmjr's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    I have had lots of issues with catheters. My company uses two brands of bags- bard and kendall. The bard have a better reflux valve which actually makes it worse at draining urine that has any...

  25. What do you wear to work?

    ErinS replied to GhostsWerePeopleToo's topic in Hospice, Palliative

    I usually wear scrub pants and a nice business casual top. We can wear scrubs or business casual, and I think I look more professional in a nicer top, but the scrub pants let me get my work