RN with GI condition

Specialties Home Health

Published

I just started training for a new HH RN job and I am already afraid it's not going to work out due to a chronic GI condition that I've had since high school. In the hospital I was able to work around it, but I can see that in HH in order to get all your visits and charting in there is little time to stop.

The preceptor I'm with does not stop at all and says she goes to the BR before she leaves and then not again until she gets home. She also doesn't eat. So, I have basically worked 9 hours straight today and only got to go to the bathroom once because I asked her if we could stop. My stomach was hurting so bad due to a full bladder. She didn't give me a hard time about it, but I feel absolutely horrible from not eating or stopping enough to go to the bathroom, driving all around in the heat, going into patients homes with often no a/c, dust and mold, animals jumping on me and some awful odors.

I understand that some of this is just part of nursing anyway, but at least in the hospital I could go to the bathroom and got a break although not always when I would have liked to, but I could handle it.

Is this typically how HH RNs work? I'm really worried because I will eventually be working 12 hour shifts and expected to get 27 points per shift. I don't want to just give up, but I also don't want to get myself so sick that I can't function and am completely miserable.

I'd really appreciate input from other HH nurses on how they work and especially if it's possible to do the job with a condition like I described. Thanks!

Love it! Thanks for the laugh! That's the only way I can deal with this is by finding the humor in it!

Hello! I too have a GI issue, and I'm an RN case manager in HH. I would go my entire med/surg shift without eating at all and would still be in the bathroom!

My first agency was in private homes and I miss that. My last 2 agencies have been strictly Medicare patients at an ALF. In private homes, I would pull over somewhere nice to chart, so I'd come home with minimal to do. I can generally see all my patients and be home by noon. Now I just finish seeing everyone in the ALF (2 diabetic, 2 wound, couple post biopsy), and go home to chart. Idk why that nurse has you running around like that. That sounds like she's trying to put you off and HH isn't like that! You could see a couple patients, go home and then go see more after dinner if you wanted.

Also, I'm PRN. Many in HH prefer to be PRN with a couple agencies rather than full time with one. You could see a whole days worth of patients just doing AM blood glucose monitoring and insulin, (1 ALF, within a couple hours before breakfast), or do spread out, in depth visits in homes. It's so varied by agency.

Hope that helps. I do believe HH is the happiest place in nursing.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I am not sure what the intention was of the other nurse, but I'm happy to say that they decided to keep me with this new nurse and it has been working out so much better. She stops whenever she needs to whether it's to get something to eat or go to the bathroom and she always asks if I need to stop which is very thoughtful. She is a case manager Monday through Friday, so once I start the 3 12 hour days it is going to be a much longer day for me and she admits it will seem very hard so not too get discouraged in the beginning.

So the patients you see in the ALF are considered like home health patients? I like doing hands on things but so far I've see a lot of wound care. I hadn't done many PICC line dressing changes before so I got to do one so far and helped with a wound vac. I prefer doing blood draws, iv infusion etc...but I'm not sure how much of that I'll be doing on the weekend. I think from what they say I'll probably have a lot of admissions. I also saw some big differences on the way each nurse does there note. One writes everything about the patient and the other just writes an update, what she did skill wise and what she taught the patient, reviewed meds, etc... It's so different from hospital charting that I'm not really sure what they are looking for.

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