What is a Day in the Dialysis clinic like for RN?

[AustinRN]

Hello,

I am an RN of 15, oops... actually 16 years now. I have always done med/surg night. I have not worked in 3 years now and am thinking seriously about dialysis.

From what I have read its very fast paced. But could someone please describe the details? How many patients do you have. What are your responsibilities. What do you love, what do you hate? Is the pay good? Awful? How much paperwork is there. What are the day to day duties of the RN. Is the liability worse than med/surg? ETc.....

I am 43, and am wondering if my knees and brain and hands could keep up if I tried this.

Thanks for your time.

[NephroBSN, BSN, RN]

.....................

[rn,lmt]

NephroBSN did a great job explaining what life is like in a freestanding dialysis clinic. (I did this for years, too). I work in a hospital based dialysis clinic in Ohio. There are mostly all RNs who do the patient care. We have a couple of seasoned LPNs (who are great). Our techs help with setting up / breaking down machines, vital and weigh patients, stock the floor, transport, run labs, hold sites, and lots of other things.

Being a hospital unit, we have both chronic outpatients (usually too unstable to be transferred to a free-standing clinic) and we also dialyze people who are inpatient. If the patient is not in one of the ICUs we have, they come down to the dialysis unit for their treatment. If they are in the ICU, we go to them for their treatment. This is one on one in the ICU. However, on the floor, our ratio is 1 nurse to 2 or 3 patients per shift. Some of our staff works 8 hours, some 10 and some 12. The acquity of our patients is very high and the job can be very stressful at times. However, I like dialysis (especially training new employees and new patients).

Hope this adds a little different perspective in a different setting for dialysis.

RN,LMT

[JEANJAVE]

If you're open minded to be trained and accept more challenging roles, go for it...I came from med-surg and loved the transition to dialysis...our hospital had to pay us more than ICU nurses (ssh) because it is a specialty (peds/dialysis/acute/chronic). We have to do on-calls for emergencies...but if you want to take the chronic dialysis clinics crowd, this is more slow-paced and I think this is better to start with, then you can go to the hospital crowd for more challenging events...hope this helps...

[AustinRN]

Thank you everyone for your answers. I have decided to give it a go! I am actually excited about being able to learn and specialize in one area after being a generalist for so long. Thanks again.

AustinRN