conscientiousnurse

Maybe you should check into a variety of healthcare careers to see if any of them would be a good fit for your physical limitations and career goals.: 1. Speech Therapist: diagnosing and treating disorders of speech and swallowing. Not too much physical work needed, needs a Master's degree, not too bad of pay. Many work in schools, which would be a good schedule for kids. 2.Dental hygienist: probably Bachelor's needed. A lot of sitting probably; most physical work is probably with upper body, not lower. 3. Counselor: not sure what qualifications needed in your state. But not a lot of physical work. 4. Various technicians, such as EKG technician or Radiology Technician. But it's possible they need to assist patients into position.

Thanks, Rntr and MBARNBSN! Yes, I saw the online resources at Humana. Haven't talked to any social workers yet (probably none at our agency) but I saw Humana does have a central resource specialist that can be communicated with.

Thanks for asking! I'm not a home health nurse, but a field case manager working for an agency that is contracted for Humana. It's not workman's comp, and not working for Medicaid. (Most of it will be visiting in the field doing assesments, connecting people to resources, etc., but no hands-on nursing). Doesn't seem like there will be a lot of orientation.

I've recently gotten a job in field case management helping chronically ill patients who are with a certain insurance provider. My first position in this field; I don't even have home health case manager experience. Any words of advice, or resources to look up? Would it help to get some kind of nursing care plan book to help with making action plans?

It is extremely rare, I know, but I know a patient who got Guillain barre syndrome after the shot. If a vaccine is really necessary, I'll get it. But the flu shot? As a fairly healthy person with no family members with immunodeficiency syndromes, I'm not convinced on the benefit vs. potential risk. If my work required it, that would be another matter.

HealthyNurse, thanks for the vaccine ingredients calculator link! I looked at it, and actually at least 1 brand of single-dose flu vaccine (Novartis) has thimersol (mercury) in it. And a lot of them have formaldehyde. Flu vaccines for sure aren't going to prevent any strain of the flu that's not in that year's vaccine either. I'd rather just keep my immunity up, and stay home from work if I do get sick.

If you're able to insert IVs so well, have you considered applying for Phlebotomist positions? Seems like a job that doesn't require heavy lifting or a lot of the things nurses hate about their jobs. Also, some insurance companies hire people to go to homes to do phlebotomy and simple exams to check eligibility for life insurance.

I did PD in the past. You could look up more info on ventilator care (alarms, etc.), and videos on any other skills your clients have that you're not that comfortable with. Maybe review basics on peds, like vital signs, normal development. Also, a peds textbook should tell you the physiological differences between kids and adults. For instance, sometimes young kids don't have as much reserve and can go downhill faster. As far as being a specialty you can do till retirement, just keep your eyes wide open on the following.: Many of your clients will be total care, and will be growing heavier with time. You will be the one turning and transferring them. Sure, they might get a Hoyer lift at some point, but some clients can still be wearing on your back. Even night shift often has to turn during the night, and/or transfer client to or from bed. Also, it can sometimes be difficult to have a stable amount of work. If clients go to the hospital or move out of your area, you won't get to work for that client while they're not at home, and it can take time to find you another one. The families also can sometimes be difficult, but it sounds like you know how to handle that. If it weren't for those problems, a lot more nurses would enjoy this field as a "till retirement" job. But just in case your back can't handle it with time, I'd try to keep my skills up for another area of nursing for the future.

Here's my point of view.: One of the basic things in man is the fight to stay alive. Unless the person has a terminal illness (or is very elderly with general poor health) and has now accepted the fact they will soon die, someone not having a desire to stay alive gives me a big red flag. In this situation, we assume they are not in their usual state of mind, and not in the position to make this kind of decision at the moment." A permanent solution to a temporary problem" is right. I believe life is something worth fighting for, whether in myself or in others. I believe that natural death has a lot of dignity to it. This culture being centered on the value of life, I believe is a good aspect of our culture, which is slowly being lost. I shiver to think what will happen if we lose this value altogether.

FYI: This sounds like private-duty home care, so you may get more supplies in that section rather than this "home Health" section which is for intermittent visits. What to expect? You will most likely do CNA duties along with LPN duties (repositioning ct/ transferring to chair, bathing). In the PD agency I worked at before, we also did a little bit of housekeeping, like dusting and vacuuming and washing the client's own supplies, sometimes even the patient's laundry. The reasoning is that the client needs a healthy and clean environment. They did not have an aide available to be paid for, and the family already was responsible for the client usually for about 8 hrs/day (which might be the night shift). They figured we had time to maintain the client's immediate environment (and perhaps laundry) along with our other duties. Now, we never did things like windows, cleaning bathrooms, mopping floors, or cleaning kitchens.

I don't know about the pay scale for sure, but it's probably higher in Seattle than Vancouver. You could try googling nurse salary and location; they might have that on Indeed. The most important, though, is not the salary, but whether you'll be able to get a job at all, in a reasonable amount of time. In the Olympia area, jobs are hard to land. Pierce county also is listed on the "balanced" list rather than the "in demand" list for R.N.s. I think King County and Clark county are both on the in demand list, though.

In our area, home health and hospice agencies seem to be really looking for people with Med/Surg background (although not sure if they want ADN). And have you ever thought of dialysis? There's also flu clinics around now, which might be a good temporary job while you're seeking something else.

Oops, I just saw your latest post, so most of the post I just made is irrelevant. The job you interviewed for sounds like the insurance company wants you to do an assessment by asking the patient and/or family member questions. They may be assessing patient's functional abilities and cognitive abilities, for instance. Well, it is a job, and could be a way to get into another job working at an insurance company as a case manager, for instance. And you may be using critical thinking skills to figure out what type of help the person would need in their home.

You said it was at a home health care company. Can you be more specific: are you talking about private-duty homecare, where you care for 1 person for an entire shift in their home, or are you talking of make home health visits, like a visiting nurse? Those are entirely different types of nursing. If it's private-duty home health, and if they do orientations for every patient and also have a good support system for you, it may be entirely appropriate for a new grad. Since private-duty only gives you 1 patient at a time, you can do your homework on all their diagnoses and meds/treatments and can often "bounce off" your thoughts on the next shift's home care nurse, or the patient's family members if present (They know the patient best, and are often a great resource). (You could also call your supervisor in the office, or the patient's M.D. Worst case: there's always 911, if you think it's an emergent situation. 911 can assess the patient and let you know whether they think they need hospitalization). Since patients in private-duty care are usually quite stable, I don't see it being a big problem to have a new grad, as long as you have fairly good assessment skills and good support.

Thanks so much to the 3 who have taken the poll so far! 2 of you thought med/surg: I am not sure if I could actually get hired in a med/surg setting, since they may notice I never had med/surg experience before, and I would have heavy competition against both new grads and experienced nurses to get in the hospital door, but I do appreciate that med/surg, (even if it doesn't open a med/surg job), could open doors to jobs like visiting home health, clinics, possibly ambulatory surgical center, and care management, as well as giving IV med experience. However, not sure if it would give me enough experience with IV starting and phlebotomy. Some home health and clinic jobs really need you to be able to do that skill at least at an elementary level. One of you on the poll answered urgent care/ER as the best preceptorship. Now I'm wondering, which of these 2 settings would be better (urgent care or ER), if I'm not planning on actually working in ER? Would I get enough experience with IV starts in urgent care? I think that urgent care would be helpful to me in getting a school nurse job, clinic or urgent care job, phone triage, or home health position too; I'd like to get better at recognizing dermatological conditions (especially in school-age children), and in triage.