Gender

Male

Location

Lame Deer, MT

Birthday:

August 16

What professional organization(s) do you belong to?

None

In what capacity or discipline do you serve hospice?

Nurse

How long have you been a hospice worker or volunteer?

6-10 years

What hospice(s) are you with?

Indian Health Service - Billings Region

What brought you to hospice?

Loss of loved one

Would you like to moderate a group related to your discipline in the forum?

No

If you wish, tell us anything else you want us to know about you.

Although I am actually not a hospice nurse, per se, I am a registered nurse, now in my fourth year of practice. For the first two years as a nurse, I worked on the inpatient ward in an Indian Health Service community hospital in Northwest Montana. While I.H.S. Billings Region doesn't currently provide any actual hospice services, my supervisor and all my colleagues in that inpatient setting were aware that if we had an end-of-life patient on our ward, I was in many ways the most qualified to work with that patient and support his/her family members, thanks to my five years as a hospice volunteer for Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, and a final immersion clinical rotation during my final term of nursing school on the JourneyCare unit at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Since April 2022, I have been serving as a Nurse Care Coordinator for an I.H.S. outpatient clinic on different reservation in Southeast Montana, primarily doing patient education, which ties in well with my previous careers that included teaching and training. I am still considering the possibility of switching to hospice nursing someday for a time before I retire, as I am passionate about end-of-life care.