RN Dialysis Career Change?

Are you looking into a clinic or hospital setting? I work acutes (hospital) and love it. I'm responsible for up to 4 pts (with a tech) or 2 pts by myself. (at a time). No med pass, I'm fairly autonomous, and you get different patients daily (I rotate between 3 hospitals). The downfalls - sometimes long days (depending on census), or short ones (I left before 1 pm the last 2 days after working 3 back to back to back 14 hour days last week), and taking call. I have call 1-2 nights per week and one weekend a month...

can't speak for working in a clinc - I did 8 weeks in a clinic for orientation and it wasn't my favorite.

Hi. It is difficult to say what is special about being a dialysis RN. I can tell you I initially got into it for no nights, no major holidays, and no Sundays. After being exposed to it and learning more I stayed because it is so different from a lot of hospital nursing. We take care of chronic patients so we get to develope relationships with them and get to make their lives better in a very direct and immediate way. Also, kidneys are endlessly facinating. They do so much more than what the average Joe thinks, they affect EVERYTHING in the body either directly or inderectly. I am an educator for FMC and one of the things I love to do with new hires is list all the systems in the body and ask for at least 3 examples in each catagory as to how it is affected by ESRD. I reccomend that you find a clinic and see if you can shadow a nurse for a few hours. The work is hard, but can be very rewarding. Good luck!