What is your response to lay people?

SoCalRN1970 · May 29, 2011

Hello there.. this a very common question. I often find it quite touching that families and friends will ask how do you do this kind of work? I always have the same response. I find it the most rewarding line of work I have ever done,and I love it. I have had a few family members often take pity upon the dysfunctional family members who are angry at the hospice nurse and aske, "How you do deal with that?" I have told many families. the same thing. My job and goals are to make one's passing as comfortable and as peaceful as possible. I support where I can and where the team can, but that is our goals. Patient and family centered for the purpose of the passing. We can't fix other issues, but we try to help with this one at hand.

It's a hard job! I mean I have been on here to vent, or I vent to my colleagues, all whilst keeping the prize in mind. Keeping patients and familles aware of the situation, supported and symptoms managed. But it' s NOT easy. it'd be easy, if we only treated the patient.. not the family, but alas, that will never happen.. :)

I get close to every patient. I have cried driving away from death visits, or when the patient is declining rapidly. But I keep my mind set on my goal as their hospice nurse. My job is to support the patient to a comfortable peaceful death. When this happens, and it often does, I know I did my job and met my own little plans of care for that patient.

ErinS, BSN, RN · May 30, 2011

I tell people 'my job is hard, but it was much harder for me to make people do things in the hospital that hurt them, that they did not want, or that I knew would do no good'. And I tell people that I like being in a partnership with my pt's and families to meet their goals. Death is sad, but to me that is such a small piece of my relationship with my pt's and families.

melsch · May 30, 2011

It is a question I seem to get a lot. People think that our job must be really sad. I alway say it is the most rewarding job I have ever had. It is sad for family members, but for me death is a normal process and we all have to die.

My job is to make a person's death the best it can be. I allow my patients to die as comfortably and with as much dignity as possible. Death is a sad time for family and friends and for the person who is experiencing it as it is a time of separation from those we love.

We will all have to die at sometime and when it is someone I love I am saddened by it, but as a nurse I see death as a transition, just like birth, it is something we all must experience. Just as maternity nurses work to make the happy occasion of birth as good an experience as possible we as palliative/hospice nurses make the sad occasion of death as good an experience as possible.

nola1202 · May 30, 2011

I remember being at a patient's funeral and watching the funeral home staff do a magnificent job. I was impressed and thought "how on earth do they do this every day?" The emotional intensity was so high. I wondered how they could sustain the same level of gentleness, consideration and concern when this was an everyday one after the other occurrence for them. I guess this is what people think about you. it's not what's wrong with you, it's what is right about you that you can keep bringing such a high level of personal care and involvement to their individual problems. I've done Home Health and stayed on when they refuse Hospice. I'm thinking of making the switch to Hospice and this thread has been helpful in reaffirming the things I think and feel while working in an emotionally charged environment.

Whispera, MSN, RN · May 31, 2011

When I worked hospice and was asked that question, my answer was that doing the work I did was a blessing to me in that I could help make things better in a very difficult time...

KateRNCHPN · May 31, 2011

I'll tell you what I tell others: that this is where God wants me. I love to teach and if this isn't a teaching specialty then I don't know what is! I also tell them that there are nurses out there that can "birth those babies" and there are nurses out there that can hold the hand of a dying patient. I just happen to be one of those people. They either smile or roll their eyes. lol!!!!!

Kate

jeannepaul, BSN · Jun 7, 2011

If I am with a family I have a good relationship with, and they have a good sense of humor, I tell them I am networking....when it's my turn, I want to have a lot of people already up there saying "hey, she's OK, let her on through"!! It always gets a laugh, they need it sometimes.

tothepointeLVN, LVN · Jun 9, 2011

I have never been more appreciated as a nurse than I have doing hospice. It never feels like work when I do hospice I would do this job for free if I dind't have to pay bills

Hospice Nurse LPN, BSN, RN · Jun 9, 2011

I have never been more appreciated as a nurse than I have doing hospice. It never feels like work when I do hospice I would do this job for free if I dind't have to pay bills

That is how I feel, too. :yeah:

tewdles, RN · Jun 9, 2011

I have felt equally appreciated in PICU, NICU, and L&D. However, there is no mistaking the rarity of the relationship that is built during this specific time...it is such a beautifully bitter sweet reward.

pattyb57 · Jun 13, 2011

i have never felt so rewarded, so fullfilled as when i am able to be part of a "good death". i know i have been able to help even when it's not so good. god has put me where i belong, even though it took me a while to get it through my thick skull! i am one of those that has left and come back several times. hospice is just what i do, and who i am.

hospice.....it's about living!