Hospice nurses are responsible for caring for patients at the end of their lives. These nurses would typically care for the terminally ill patients and help them ensure their quality of life during their last days. This field of nursing is different from other nursing fields that are working with patients that may have a cure in the future.

As such, the primary role of a hospice nurse will lie in the fact that they should help terminally ill patients to live comfortably and with the least amount of pain. Here are a few tips for a hospice nurse just stepping into the field:

It’s not about medicine:

When it comes to hospice care, the nurses should remember an important philosophy, which is that “end of life care” is not about medicines and interventions. The focus of a hospice nurse should not be in the treatments, procedures, interventions, or morphine. Rather, they should understand that the end of life care is all about teaching, guiding, supporting, and nurturing. Hospice care is all about reassuring the near and dear ones of the dying person that nothing bad is occurring and that the patient is exactly undergoing what every other dying person would undergo. In simple terms, hospice care is all about neutralizing the terror all the everyone thinks of with death.

Realize the fact of life:

As a hospice nurse, one should be able to recollect the fact that she is not responsible for the outcomes. What the nurse is responsible for is the travel to that outcome and helping the patient have a comfortable death. Also, hospice nurses must realize the fact that there are a few things in the world that cannot be fixed. As nurses, people always want to correct the things that are wrong. But, it won’t be possible when the patient can’t be rescued. Yes, of course, to acknowledge this can be difficult. But, hospice nurses can draw their strength on the understanding that they can make the quality of the patient’s remaining time better.

Key Teaching Areas:

As a hospice nurse, one must understand that his or her key teaching areas will revolve around eating and/or not eating. During these situations, a hospice nurse should be able to explain why the patient’s body does not want the food. This applies to drinking too. To be dehydrated is just to go to sleep and not waking up. All these are perfectly normal and a part of the natural process. Sometimes, the nurse may have to teach about bowel management and sometimes about mouth and skin care. It’s the duty of the hospice nurse to describe how the patient is slowly withdrawing and taking more sleep.

Talking about Death:

Being a hospice nurse, the most difficult thing that one would face is talking to patients about death. This takes up a lot of practice, as well as skills. It’s not easy for them to say what a person doesn’t want to hear. It takes a lot of practice to convey it in a way that doesn’t hurt. A study that was conducted in the year 2016 has shown that while healthcare providers know it’s important for them to tell their patients about death, they struggle with the way they should go about it.

In this line, all the new hospice nurses are recommended to go through the guidelines that are available to help through this process. The best to look for is the one from the “U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health.” These guidelines would give new hospice nurses the step by step process to talk to a patient about death. This would include initiating the discussion and ensuring that the patients understand the diagnosis. The guidelines would also include establishing the end of life wishes of the patients and developing the best treatment plan that is comfortable for everyone.

Practice listening:

Although the hospice nurses don’t have an answer always, they need to be ready to listen to the patients. Sometimes it’s just that patients want to tell the nurses about what’s going on with them. While it’s true that it’s difficult to go through in their career, it’s also important to practice to listen more than to talk. In this, it’s to be noted that the nurses don’t necessarily have to offer any advice or solution. At times, just listening is all they need. It’s natural for the nurses to become busy with the course of treatment. But, they should not forget to listen to the patient needs. It’s important for them to understand what they need and how they need to be helped.

Following all these tips would make a new hospice nurse successful in her career. At the end of the day, the hospice nurses should not forget to get relieved from the stress and burnout that they have from their duties. Self-care is also really important!