Pediatric home health is a strange place to work because you're always in other people's homes. You have to hit the exact balance of professionally taking care of a medically fragile kiddo and having a relationship with the family. It's weird being in someone else's home and right in the middle of their life so much of the time. A nursing skill that is very important but not one of the ones that they teach you is to bring calm into the room by not falling into the drama. Drama of the situation, family members, whatever. It doesn't help to contribute and you might not be able to stop it, but you can diffuse it if you have the right knack about you. It's just extra hard when you're in someone's actual home.
I've never not accepted an assignment though. And I've had to address certain issues with a family or with my boss or with both, I've had to call CPS in, I've brought an entire bag of cleaning supplies to make sure a child had the best environment he could at least while I was there. So the other day when I emailed my scheduler to request to be taken off as backup for a case, she immediately jumped to action and offered to find someone to relieve me. The child was a pretty easy case as far as nursing care goes, but the family was set on bringing me into their dissatisfaction with other members of their medical team, asking me inappropriate questions that I didn't really answer but really just didn't even want asked, and ultimately what is kind of a short shift ended up being way more taxing than the long ass twelve hour shifts I do regularly.
I'm thankful to have a solid enough reputation to be able to politely ask to be reassigned and have it just happen. One of my biggest hopes is that I always have a reputation as a solid nurse, hard worker, and drama free.
I definitely have the best stories ever though!
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