ready or not?

[cherilee]

;)Ok so I spoke with an HR recruiter for a certain HH agency today.

By the time I got off the phone, I was thinking maybe I need more experience?

She told me there was alot of wound care, "severe wound care" and the patients are very complex.

I told her that I have a good year experience in acute care, but I am not an experienced wound care nurse.( I have done basic dressings).

She said orientation would be "a few weeks". They don't have mentors or anything like that.

Im wondering If I should wait longer and get more wound care experience? Or is this just one particular agency . Do some agencies have skill training or at least an orientation of a few months or something? I was hoping to do this now, but I dont want to set myself up ... I have one full year acute care, lots of post ops , diabetes, chf,

chest pain, etc. Any experienced hh nurses care to respond?

Thanks in advance..

[annaedRN, RN]

The best place to get wound care experience is HH in my opinion! If you have your assessment and critical thinking skills "down" then you may be ready to try it out. It might be worth while to do a ride-a-long and ask if you could see some of the challenging wound care cases, as well as a wound vac if you haven't worked with them before. WOund care in HH is a BIT different that in a hospital. I've noticed that the same docs/hospitals seem to use the same dressings/supplies over and over...so you get used the the type of wounds and products and what wounds need and what to request if they change/don't respond. Make sure that you will have a mentor or atleast a resource person to call if you have questions especially at first. I've been in HH for over 6 yrs and I still call supervisors/other nurses at times! Good luck to you!

[cookie102]

remember what is complex to one may not be to another,,,she may be referring to complex as "using new products" and is the HR person a nurse--that she can be saying such things....you will see lots of different wounds in HH,,but you will also see there are lots of different products to use,,nothing that you can't do.....think about taking a course on wounds,,,i did an excellent one thru Western Schools, 30 CEU's , excellent

best of luck!!!!

[wonderbee, BSN, RN]

Really, you don't see much different in the field than you do in the hospital. People are people and the wound care supplies are pretty much universal. We do a lot of wet to dry and see a lot of the alginate products for debriding. We see a lot of amputations from diabetic wounds. The wound vac was really the only new procedure I had to learn and the most complicated one I've had to do. I went out with my preceptor the first time I did one. It's really not that complicated once you've done one or two. You can read up on how to do it first. The internet is a good resource.

[caliotter3]

I've found that the office personnel start to talk like they are really more knowledgeable than they really are after they've been on the job awhile and hear "nursespeak". I don't take what they say that seriously unless I'm talking with a nurse. I've only met one nurse working in the office doing HR, staffing, and admin type stuff. Even she could not speak to the specifics of the cases. So go out with a nurse a time or two, to see what it's like and study up on your own. If you don't particularly like the tone you got from speaking to this one person, then try some of the other agencies first. Maybe you can find an agency where they are more amenable to providing a training period for you. You also might consider shift work instead of visits if you are not that enthusiastic about wound care. There's not much, if any, wound care in shift work. Just another possibility open for you in hh.