Low Census

[violet_violet]

I'm a NG and just got hired into a hospital unit. I accepted their offer. Now that I"m thinking about it, they have also mentioned to me that most likely in a pay period (2 weeks) I will get at least one low census and will be called off. There may be opportunity to make it up on your on-call day.

I'm wondering how much this low census will affect me? What can I expect? It is a closed unit and I will not be able to float. It is a good foot in the door to a hospital setting and in one of my favorite units.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

In these economic times you are lucky to get a position at all..........take the good with the bad and if you have to get per-diem elsewhere...

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

Getting LOA's on pedi happened so much in the summer months that I sometimes got only 18 work hours/week. So I crosstrained to ER. Then, when I got over the fear of working in another dept, I crosstrained to others and soon I was in demand.

[delvenia]

i am very fortunate because thus far, they have scheduled me for an extra 12 shift each week for like the next two months. i've been a nurse a year now on a very busy med/surg unit in the only level 1 and magnet hospital in the region. because of that, we actually get people flown in from northern VA and North Carolina. we also have a medical school on our campus and our hospital has 569 beds currently with 4 med/surg floor, all with different focuses and a few with step-down beds. i was told by one of the more tenured nurses that from around thanksgiving to the beginning of the year, the doctors may not admit as many people due to it being vacation time and patient's tend to not want to come in because they are usualy with families at this time of the year, thus i may get floated another floor or that i should hope that i actually get called off, which she said might happen. she did warn me that two days after thansgiving and christmas, we get a ton of diabetics and renal patients who may have overindulged so i will likely not get called off at those times. this summer was extrmely busy and frustrating. i am happy so far for the break been only getting like 4 patients lately rather than my full load of 6 but after reading some of the previous posts, i am getting a little nervous