What Is the Job Description of a Hospice Worker?

Video Transcript

"What is the job description of a hospice worker? I'm Sandi Sunter, with The Hospice of the Florida Suncoast. Because a hospice is made from an interdisciplinary team, there are a multitude of job descriptions. There are nurses, doctors, and social workers, counselors and chaplains, and volunteers and home health aides. Each of those disciplines has its own job description based on the regulations that are state-regulated and certainly by the kinds of licenses that they have that is regulated. But then there are those kinds of qualities for hospice workers that go beyond what the state says they must be able to have, and the competencies that they must have. Hospice workers must be advocates. They must be able to be the ones that tell the truth for their patients and be there for their patients. They must be educators. They must be the ones who teach them about what they can expect at end of life. They must be there to give them training and give those caregivers some hands-on training as to how to best provide care to their loved ones. They must be counselors and be able to listen carefully to the patients, to the families, to the other family members as they're going through the dying process and the grief. The job description of a hospice worker is not just about their discipline. It is about having the caring and the compassion, the ability to be present, to listen to the patients and families and allow them to take their end of life journey in the way they want to do it. I'm Sandi Sunter. I'm with The Hospice of the Florida Suncoast."