When a loved one is terminally ill, it can be useful to understand what a hospice nurse in the home can do to help. Hospice nurses have daily medical care duties, serve as a communication hub between all parties involved and work in an environment of emotional pressure and stress.
Daily Duties
A hospice nurse’s duties fall heavily in the medical care field. Hospice nurses perform many traditional nursing duties such as observing, assessing and recording symptoms. They work closely with physicians, administer medications and provide emotional support. Most of the nurse’s duties involve minimizing pain. The medications that hospice nurses administer and the symptoms they record are not intended to aid a patient in his or her recovery, but rather to make his or her remaining days as comfortable as possible.
The Communication Hub
Hospice nurses coordinate the care of every patient through an advising physician, provide direct patient care, evaluate the patient’s conditions and serve as the liaison between families and physicians. A hospice nurse may also work with a patient’s social worker, home-care aide and physical, occupational or speech therapist.
The Stress and Pressure
Hospice nurses have a particularly tough and stressful job because they know that the patient for whom they are caring is terminally ill. Because they serve as homecare nurses and spend several hours a day with their patients in the home, they can become emotional caretakers. Although being a nurse of any kind is very difficult, dealing every day with a dying person requires an exceptional temperament that embodies great caring, patience and resolve.
Learn more about homecare nursing.