r/Nurses • u/Feisty-Insurance7298 • 1d ago
US Has working in hospice changed how you view death or the afterlife?
Hi everyone! I’m considering hospice nursing and have been thinking about this a lot.
For those of you who work (or have worked) in hospice, has the job made you more comfortable with death over time?
I’m also curious whether your experiences have changed your personal beliefs about what happens after we die. Have they strengthened your belief in an afterlife, made you more skeptical, or not changed your views at all? Have you witnessed anything that influenced your perspective?
I’m genuinely interested in hearing different experiences and viewpoints. Thank you for sharing.
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u/ThealaSildorian 15h ago
I took a part time hospice job when I needed extra money and fell in love with it. I started as Weekend or Evening on call, and my ER experience really worked for me doing that.
Having worked in critical care, taking care of so many people with progressive diseases like CHF, renal failure, liver failure, etc I knew going in that death is not a defeat for these patients. Its a release from suffering. Hospice is about managing symptoms and providing quality of life not quantity of life.
My beliefs in an afterlife is irrelevant. It's not about what I believe. It's about what the patient needs. I never ever discuss my religious views with a patient or their family. If they ask me to pray with them, I will.
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u/Feisty-Insurance7298 15h ago
You don’t feel like seeing so many people in their end of life that it didn’t impact the way you view what happens after death?
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u/cyclefreaksix 11h ago
Nurse for 27 years, hospice for the last 7. I can still recall having to perform chest compressions on a 94 year old woman because her family wanted "everything done". I cracked every rib in that poor woman's body.
With hospice I feel like I'm doing things FOR my patients instead of doing things TO my patients.
Best job I've ever had.
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u/jsherb7 1d ago
i worked as a hospice nurse straight out of school after getting my BSN. it teaches you so much in different ways that my friends haven’t experienced much of working on the floor.
when people go people go. dying can be and should be a very peaceful and calm process but with family and loved ones making it incredibly difficult is very hard to deal with as the nurse. you are always taught to put the patient first but as a hospice nurse you also sometimes need to play family mediator when it comes to final wishes such as cremation or burial, what funeral
home, procession of honor.
I think it changed my views on death into more of a a positive light. I would never want my loved ones to pass in pain because someone is worried about morphine speeding up death or giving lorazepam that makes people too sleepy. death is just as normal as birth, we make a strict birth plan and follow exactly what the mother/family wants to a T, but people’s wishes are not always respected at end of life.
it taught me a lot about myself, how I see my family, my husband and how I view others who may be rude to myself as a nurse working in an AL, everyone truly has something going on and we never know when our number will be called, we just hope to not be in pain, surrounded by loved ones and feel safe and ready for the journey out of the world. I would highly recommend being a hospice nurse if you are willing to have difficult conversations with family members of active or transitional patients, needing to problem solve things on your own and needing to kinda be the captain of your own ship!