RN looking for Florida Hospice Nursing advice!

mPathee · Aug 1, 2008

I, too, am a former critical care nurse (13 years before hospice) and have worked for the past 4 years in hospice and absolutely LOVE it. I was a little skeptical going in. The supervisor who interviewed me took one look at my resume and said "I see here that all of your experience is in critical care -- that's not exactly the type of work we're involved with here I told her I knew that, and promised I wouldn't try to save all of the patients who wanted to die. There are different types of hospice nursing you can do -- working in "the field" where you go to your patients' homes, or in an inpatient care facility, just to name a few. I work prn and do both. Some weeks I love being in my car, and other times I just want to be in one of the facilities. A lot of people think it is too sad of a job, but I personally watched a lot of "dead horses" get beaten in my critical care career, so it's actually kind of nice to be able to let people die on their own terms, with dignity. You are not just nursing the patient, but the whole family, neighborhood, etc. The hospice I work for believes that no person should die alone, so we are present at as many deaths as is feasible, and the night nurses go out in the middle of the night to tend to dying patients. You get a tremendous amount of autonomy. Florida has a LOT of older folks, so hospices will always need nurses. Of course, you might get children all the way through geriatrics, depending on the type of services the one you choose to work for offers. I personally believe nursing is a calling, and if you have that, hospice is a great place to be. Hope this helps, and I wish you much luck and success. At the very least, you can try it, and if you don't like it, do something else -- that's the joy of being a nurse!