Hospice work is a calling as much as it is a job opportunity, and clearly not everyone is cut out for it, says Mary Pistulka, who on Oct. 20 was named 2014 Home Care and Hospice Nurse of the Year by the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC).
 
Hospices in need of a top-notch nurse should seek someone compassionate but also make sure the nurse is self-motivated and has a good sense of boundaries, she advises. Hospices shouldn’t hire a nurse who sympathizes too much to be effective.
 
Pistulka, who works for Avera@Home in Yankton, S.D., is an example of someone who does a great job advocating for patients, says Katie Huff, a nurse manager for Avera.
 
Pistulka stood out to NAHC this year due partly to her care of a truck driver with end stage COPD. The care she provided allowed him to live at home longer than he otherwise would have.
 
The truck driver was an “independent soul” and wasn’t going to take off his oxygen just to smoke a cigarette, Pistulka says.
 
Working with the patient involved a lot of give-and-take, but Pistulka understood how important it was for him to live at home. She advocated for him, working with him and her hospice to provide him high-quality care at home, Huff says.
 
Pistulka has worked in home care and hospice for about 26 years, all for Avera.
 
“I value the mission of this place,” Pistulka says. “It was started by a group of nuns over 100 years ago, with Christian values at its root, and those are woven through everything we do all day long.”