Just Lost! Advice please!

Nurses General Nursing

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I have posted on various occasions on this forum and have had some fantastic advice but would be very grateful if someone could point me in the right direction AGAIN 😊!.

I am a new graduate RN and recently started dialysis at a clinic and HATED it. I left after three days as I knew that they would waste time and money and it just was not for me!

I have an interview next week for a community hospital with a predominantly older people population. However the dodgy staffing agency that contacted me in the past have made contact with me again and tried to persuade me to work on med surg unit this weekend. They are offering triple the money of the hospitals and all other practice areas! Triple! I am so scared to go with the agency as I have no experience and actually turned down an offer already with that hospital due to non existent staff patient ratio! .

My dilemma is that my husband started screaming at me saying I'm lazy as I'm too scared to do agency but he said that I have to start somewhere and why start on a similar unit earning buttons when I will be paid so much more with agency.

The staffer said he has 6 new graduates working perfectly in that hospital and if they can do it, then why can't I?. I feel out of my depth and it would not be safe. He said I will work side by side with veteran nurses and just to try it!. I feel so bullied by him and hubby. I have 4 children and a mortgage to pay and my husband is so sick of all my toing and froing.

However, I feel that the community hospital if I get it is far safer even if I do start on a very low salary. I will get experience. Thanks so much if you've read my story. Please please advise me and thanks in advance!

Specializes in Progressive care, cardiac surgery, telemetry.

What is the ratio at each place?

In the hospital that the agency wants to send me, it's one RN:8-12 patients at night. There are no regulations on it but staffer said I would work with aa staff nurse and not on my own.

I don't know the ratio at community hospital yet as haven't gone for interview yet.

Specializes in psych, addictions, hospice, education.

I think there's something hidden in the job you were offered. In this time when there are oodles of nurses looking for work, why would an agency pay three times the usual rate? Why would they push you to take the job when there should be a line of nurses waiting for any job?

What's the orientation? Is there any?

People who hire seldom know what it's like to work on a unit. Work with experienced nurses? I think if everyone has 8-12 patients, no one will have any time to help you, even if they are there!

If there's little or no orientation and few if any experienced nurses there, and available to help, it's a set up for disaster for you.

Ask for a day of job-shadowing before you say yes!

I'm very suspicious....

It sounds like your nursing career is off to a shaky start- a 3 day dialysis job and an offer for a dodgy staffing agency for a poorly run unit.

Time to do inventory. Who is hiring in your area? Why were you so quick to leave dialysis?

I am in Ireland where there is presently a huge nursing shortage. Agencies have very lucrative contracts with hospitals due to such a nursing shortage. A few years back, many nurses left the country due to a hiring embargo and never came back. There is too much choice for new grads now, hence making it easier to make the wrong decision.

When I embarked on the dialysis training, I realised for me that it was not for me and that a hospital would give me a broader scope. I have 5 hospitals nearby. I am just so anxious about doing the right thing and not risking my registration. Thanks for your feedback.

Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.

In any country in the world, offering three times more money for the same job means that the cheese is free but it is probably somewhere very much near a mousetrap. Dangerously near, I would say.

Mmm I thought as much! . As tempting as it is with the mountain of bills and things the kids need, a year on a low salary in the hospital won't kill us!. I've come this far, I suppose. Nurse gradds start on a rate of 27,483 euro per year here in a hospital which must be approx 23,000 dollars or so which is why many nurses do not want to work for hospitals a lot more money in agency, community and nursing homes. 13.50euro per hour in hospital and I'm 40years of age!

Mmm I thought as much! . As tempting as it is with the mountain of bills and things the kids need, a year on a low salary in the hospital won't kill us!. I've come this far, I suppose. Nurse gradds start on a rate of 27,483 euro per year here in a hospital which must be approx 23,000 dollars or so which is why many nurses do not want to work for hospitals a lot more money in agency, community and nursing homes. 13.50euro per hour in hospital and I'm 40years of age!

My apologies and I stand corrected. 27,483 euro is approximately 30-31,000 dollars starting pay in Irish hospitals

I don't think I would show my hand to such a hostile man.

I would take the low paying hospital job for some experience and then go capitalize on those outrageous wages in likely awful conditions to get myself out of the financial hole.

I don't think I would show my hand to such a hostile man.

I would take the low paying hospital job for some experience and then go capitalize on those outrageous wages in likely awful conditions to get myself out of the financial hole.

So I should take the community hospital if I'm successful and do one or two days with agency?. Sunday night is 55euro per hour so about 60dollars per hour.

Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

I'm not sure how it works is Ireland, but in the US it is not recommended for new RNs to work with staffing agencies. They maybe get a day of orientation and are then expected to function independently. Agency nurses are in the hospital to help the understaffed unit -- not the other way around. I've been an RN for 13 yrs and still get nervous thinking about working with no orientation!

As for your husband screaming at you...that is terrible. He needs to go through nursing school, and then try taking care of 8-12 pts by himself the moment he passes his licensing exam, see how scary that is, and then talk to you. And with four kids, he should be thanking you for any effort you are making to help support the family!!!

Now a piece of advice: going forward you really should find a new job before quitting your existing job. I get you didn't like outpatient dialysis, but it paid you a check.

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