What is your response to lay people?

[Vtachy1]

I don't know what to say as I'm new to this job. When people say "how do you do this job?" Today I just responded, well, I just think of the family and what they go through taking care of the patients 24 hours a day, and even though yes, I do get close to the patient, the family members are so close and will miss them so much more.

I want to tell them how I worked in ICU and it is such a NICE change. So much more humane than ramming tubes down every body orfice. But I don't say that:)

[Nonick9700]

I agree with you all - it's rewarding! I explain to them how rewarding it is to help someone get comfortable and stay comfortable. I also love that I can focus on one patient at a time and give them quality of life, not necessarily quantity. I also give huge praise back to families that have kept their loved one at home or supported them in a LTC every day, sometimes for years. I guess that's refreshing to see after working LTC where some people had no visitors ever.

[LMTRN]

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.

:twocents:I've used this sentiment with families, and most get it. Some births are violent, some are easy, but ultimately, it's a life going to another plane. Energy is not destroyed, just changed.

[jschut, BSN, RN]

I can't give quantity, but I just wanna help give quality to the days left....

[tgrosz]

it is a grace from God to be allowed to be in the presence of death

[Bbo.W]

Eventually I want to be a midwife but for now I am a CNA working in LTC. I love the privilege of caring for a hospice patient....Lots of shifts consist of other aides standing on their heads to avoid caring for a hospice patient but I am not afraid to witness death.....I feel like if I am able to see people and their families safely through that gate, I can eventually "birth babies" too :-) Many people are afraid of/ intimidated/uncomfortable with the beginning and end of life, but there is no place I'd rather be!

[tothepointeLVN, LVN]

Eventually I want to be a midwife but for now I am a CNA working in LTC. I love the privilege of caring for a hospice patient....Lots of shifts consist of other aides standing on their heads to avoid caring for a hospice patient but I am not afraid to witness death.....I feel like if I am able to see people and their families safely through that gate, I can eventually "birth babies" too :-) Many people are afraid of/ intimidated/uncomfortable with the beginning and end of life, but there is no place I'd rather be!

I always like the analogy that hospice nurses are midwifes for the soul.

[Steeleworks]

In researching my book on hospice, I found that people who used hospice are very passionate about it. Those who have not used it, will ask questions like the one you posed.

In my surveys likewise, people who had not used hospice did not want to talk about death and dying.

So, to help change peoples thinking, I respond to the questions like the one you mentioned, that most do not understand that my job allows people to live during the last days of their lives. Hospice is about living and I get to help them do just that. It is a rather incredible job and a wonderful privilege.