What is a day in the Life of a Hospice Nurse consist of?

Specialties Hospice

Published

Specializes in ER, Psych, Telephone Triage.

Do you work 12's or 8hr shifts?

Nurse Patient Ratio?

Do you have time to spend with your patients or task oriented with allot of clinical stuff Like IV's and meds and blood tests?

Are you required to pray with your patients?

What type of staffing besides RN work with your guys?

What situations are most stressful to you in your specialty?

I work ER and wonder if you guys wind up overloaded as much as we do most of the time?

Hi;

I am an LPN and I work on a 12 bed inpatient unit. When we are full I will have 4 patients. Last night I only had three patients. Our staffing on an overnight consists of 2 RNs, 1 LPN and 1 CNA. We do use IVs or SQ lines quite frequently. There is a significant amount of assessing the patient, performing interventions, and evaluating the intervention. We spend time providing education to the patient and the family. We spend time just listening. We spend time just being there. I am not required to pray with my families or patients. If I am in the room and choose to participate I can. If I do not wish to participate but I am in the room, I just need to be respectful. The most rewarding thing I experience is when a family member hugs me and says "you were able to comfort my loved one". The most stressful situation is when a family comes in and everyone is not on the same page. I do love my job.

Specializes in ER, Psych, Telephone Triage.

Sounds interesting in ER there is hardy ever time to deal with Patients emotional needs just no time. As a matter of fact that is frowned upon. Just get them in and out "Treat em and street em!

For my self someone who is very into empowerment and building trust with my patients, and taking the time to listen to a Patient it becomes very conflicting to me!@

Specializes in Hospice.

I'm new to hospice world from LTC and I love it:)

I work a combination of 8 hour and 10 hour days. I also share the on call responsibilities so in a two month period I work 2 weekends and five weeknights on call (phone calls and visits if needed).

And there is this block of time called a "lunch" - something completely new to me! I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do during it at first.

There is charting (including charting to satisfy regulatory requirements), but it is so much more reasonable that what I encountered in LTC.

I work as a case manager/ RN, my patients are either in their homes or a facility.

I love that I am focusing on one patient at a time and a holistic approach is utilized. Our team (nurses, aides, social workers, chaplains, volunteers) really does work well together. My favorite thing is that our focus is truly on what is important to the patient when we provide care.

We are not required to pray with patients.

We still do some clinical skills - PICCs/ ports, caths, blood draws. ER experience will be a bonus.

At least where I work, staff is encouraged to take care of themselves - so that they can provide the best care to our patients and their families. This was a refreshing change for me.

Stress... For me it's when I can't get s/s effectively managed. And there are unique family dynamics/ situations (probably exactly the same as what you've dealt with in the ER) - except we are on their "turf".

+ Add a Comment