Comparing Wages in the OR setting

stevierae · Jul 16, 2002

Oh, man!!! NOW I see why so many nurses from the South come out here and work STRIKES (it's the only way they will ever make any money!!!) The Midwest seems to have appalling wages, too. I think all you guys should take travel assignments. That's what I do, because OR nurses don't make much money in Oregon, either, AND they are expected to clean their rooms as well, in a lot of hospitals!! Plus, if you choose to take call in Oregon ORs, the on-call pay is only $2 or $3 an hour. In San Francisco, where I usually take an annual travel assignment, it is another world. They REALLY respect their RNs: they always have adequate staffing (if someone calls in sick, they are automatically replaced by a registry person.) They have a safe staffing law with strict RN-patient ratios which are ENFORCED. No one would EVER suggest that we should clean our own rooms--they respect us as professionals, and, besides, we would be taking away a housekeeper's way of making a living. The unions respect each other. OK--in San Francisco, I usually ask for, and get, a $3,000. monthly housing subsidy, which is tax free, and paid as one check at the beginning of the month. (NEVER take what they offer you at first--counteroffer and counteroffer, and call around to different companies, until you get what you want. Some even provide a rental car and free CEs!! You need 30 CEs every 2 years to maintain a CA RN license.) You CAN go with their furnished housing, but I have friends there, and so I use a FRACTION of that housing subsidyon SF rent, and put the rest toward my own house payment and in savings. You can always get a roommte or roommates, too, to save on rent; that is how almost everyone in SF lives, anyway, while they are single, to save money. Hourly wages are around $29.00 per hour; doesn't seem like much, until you factor it in with your housing allowance (that makes it about $50.00 an hour, part of which is tax free.) I always negotiate a contract stipulating that I won't take call. I've done my years of call when I worked full time as a staff RN!! But, if you want call, on-call pay is half-time; call-in is a guaranteed 3 or 4 hour minimum at time and one -half. In fact, anything over 8 hours in a day is time and a half. In Oregon, you only get time and a half if you exceed 40 hours in one week. If you work 18 hours in one day, but you only do 39.75 hours for the week TOTAL--tough luck; it's still straight time. I LOOOOOVE working in San Francisco, and I love LIVING in Oregon, so I have the best of both worlds. You could too!! Oh, to the Washington RN who started this thread--why don't you e-mail me privately? I could tell you about some lucrative WA and OR travel assignments; you should NOT have to settle for so little money for all that you do.

VictoriaG · Jul 26, 2002

I work at a rural hospital in Michigan. My base pay is $22.96/hour which is about what I was making 4 years ago n Lansing. I make an additional $1.10/hour charge nurse pay and only $1.60/hour call pay. Still, with call, I make about $55,000/year which is not bad for rural Michigan. You can buy a lot of house here for $100,000.

FloridaCCRN, CRNA · Aug 24, 2002

Originally posted by mmckinneyrn
I want to go to CA and work with Mike!

Me too!

DIPLOMATICRN4HIRE, MSN, RN · Aug 24, 2002

As a staff nurse in the Great Cheap state of Alabama I made a (hold your breath) a whopping 16.00 and hour and 5.00 for call

As a traveler

Nebraska: 32.00 plus all housing and travel paid (I fly in from Egypt business class) and call of 16.00 and hour ( I take all the call they want to give) sure Ill hold a beeper for chits and giggles

plus a ending bonus of 1000.00 from the hospital and 1000.00 from the company

California: 32.00 hour and all housing and usual stuff plus same travel package as stated before and I flew from South Africa

10.00 call pay an hour

All of this is the OR and I do all cases , I specailize in Cardio-thorasics but I can circulate and scrub any case that happens in the OR from Ortho, Hearts,Gen,Gyno, and trauma...

Other countries well there another story all together....

After my first assignment and I got my first paycheck I almost had a stroke.... I called the company and told them that there had to be a mistake , because my first check was more than what I had made a month humping it in Bama

zoe

Shevalove · Aug 25, 2002

Wow KC Chick you can go right into the OR out of school??? I haven't seen anything like that in my area.

dindy · Aug 25, 2002

This is for Poopsiebear, where in PA are you working and what are the working conditions there? I am looking for a good place to work in the OR. Please let me know!!!

heartholder · Aug 25, 2002

Shevalove,

I went into the OR right out of school. The orientation is longer for new graduates now. It was six months for me. it is now a nine month orientation for new grads. and 3 months for nurses with experience. I love the OR and have never worked in any other part of the hospital. But a part of me has always wondered about working in the units or ER. what do you all think, can I do it?? I have been a nurse since 91. and have done nothing but OR, but I have done some traveling.

thanks

Joy

chartleypj · Aug 27, 2002

It looks like salary is driven in part by the general cost of living in a particular part of the country. Here, south of Boston, an RN with 25 years+ of experience makes about $33.00 / hr. Call pay is currently approximately $5.00 / hr with time and one half regular salary when called in. ( 2 hour minimum paid for that). The facility has a union (thank goodness). I ask myself every day whether or not the salary is worth the stress of dealing with poor management, low morale and lack of teamwork.

Do any of you still feel as passionately about your work yet feel the same frustrations on a daily basis?

Pj

heartholder · Aug 27, 2002

OH yea Pj....here in the south. wages are LOW. I am a nurse with 11 years experience and at my hospital (which is the only one in East Tennessee) top wages for a RN is a whopping $19.24 /hour with $20 an 8 hour shift call pay. we have voted down the last contract offer. because of mandatory overtime and lack of staff. Management is poor and yes there is a lack of teamwork also. I love what I do but get so frustrated on a daily basis. I hate the bull****. I am one of the lucky ones, I now work occasionial ie: 4 days a week. and I get premium pay. an extra $5 /hour.

Rottie1 · Aug 27, 2002

I have been in the OR for 4 years now, getting $19.86 an hour with $1.50/hr for call, which can range from 1 night a week to 4 nights a week, we average 1 1/2 weekends in a six week period. Our call pay is stopped if we go in to work. We only get time and a half if we are over 40 hrs in a 1 week period. Brand new nurses coming into the OR get aroun $14 and change an hour. plus of course everyone gets some kind of sign on bonus, but then you are stuck there for however many years you signed on. They do offer a tuition assistance, as an incentive but that is pretty much it. not too much to brag about.

stevierae · Aug 27, 2002

Originally posted by Esther
I have been in the OR for 4 years now, getting $19.86 an hour with $1.50/hr for call, which can range from 1 night a week to 4 nights a week, we average 1 1/2 weekends in a six week period. Our call pay is stopped if we go in to work. We only get time and a half if we are over 40 hrs in a 1 week period. Brand new nurses coming into the OR get aroun $14 and change an hour. plus of course everyone gets some kind of sign on bonus, but then you are stuck there for however many years you signed on. They do offer a tuition assistance, as an incentive but that is pretty much it. not too much to brag about.

On-call pay should be HALF- TIME, period!!! Call-in should be time and one half, with a 4 hour minimum.

This $1.50, $2.00 an hour thing you guys are settling for is ludicrous.

Do you think any of your management types would settle for that pittance? I wonder what THEY get for being "OR supervisor on call" for the weekends--and when do they ever get called in? NEVER!! Most Or nurses are glad to be free of their lazy a**es and have some autonomy in their rooms when they have to work weekends.

Not only that, but I'll bet you are all doing elective cases on the weekends. The call crew should be for EMERGENCIES ONLY. If there are truly enough elective cases to warrant a weekend schedule, then there should be a 7 day elective schedule, rotating staff, or staffed with people who like to work weekends and have 2 days off during the week. Those people should also get a weekend shift differential.

How would you feel if you had to bring your child in unconscious with an acute epidural hematoma--or your father with a ruptured AAA--and the surgery had to be delayed BECAUSE THE CALL CREW WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ELECTIVE LAP CHOLE!!!!

Guaranteed, this scenario has and will happen one day--perhaps not to a family member, but to you weekend call nurses who, while doing an elective case, get an urgent call from CT scan saying they have a ruptured AAA who will die if he isn't brought into surgery RIGHT AWAY!!!

That is a lawsuit waiting to happen against your hospitals.

Think about it. Your time is as valuable as the next person's. You are worth more than $2 an hour, regardless of WHERE you live.

And STAND UP regarding elective weekend cases and refuse to do them anymore, when you are on call for emergencies, in the interest of good patient care. Call is meant to deal with EMERGENCY cases during non-opoerational hours. Go to the media, if need be--they would LOVE to hear what might just happen at a hospital set up for 24 hour "emergency" surgery.

Also, call pay is traditionally calculated SEPARATELY from the normal workweek. It shouldn'tMATTER how many hours you worked during the week, or even if you worked AT ALL during the week--call-in is call-in, period, and needs to be paid at time and a half!!! It should NOT count toward hours worked in a 40 hour work week!!

Check with your state labor boards, and lobby to get some archaic work related laws changed!!! You deserve better treatment!

Rottie1 · Aug 28, 2002

Stevierae,

Exactly! We do elective cases on saturday (supposedly only on saturday), and there have been times when an emergency comes in whether it is an appy or a crani, at that point we call in the back up crew. We have a seperate heart call crew also and there have been times when another surgeon wants to do a CABG so what do those folks do - call all their buddies and see if anyone wants to volunteer to come in - and they gather enough people willing to come in. The surgeons always treaten to tell administration that we are not doing their cases and then we hear it from them.

One day I was in charge for a while, (before I had to do my own case - on a weekday) and a heart surgeon wanted to add something, I told him he could go AFTER the cabg that was going that would be 1730. Later after someone else was in charge I get a call from administration telling me that I should call some people in to do the case, I told them there was no one, people were ill or whatever. Next thing I know they called the front desk where someone else was in charge and told them that we had to do the case! Guess what he said - Okay. So they did it with a partial heart team and some others.

If a surgeon calls and wants to put something on we have basically been told that we cant say no. even if we keep tagging on cases at the bottom of the schedule, our OR is supposed to be closed to elective cases at 2100. We have done Lap Choles and fx hips starting after 2100. And most of the time the call crew has been at work since 0630.

We have asked them to close a room for staffing shortages and the director is the one that says "oh no, they won't go for that, the OR is the money maker" We will see how many rooms they close after 4 or more nurses leave within the next couple of months.

I also wonder why patients don't refuse to have their surgery after 4pm, they should know that the surgeon has probably been up for some time now and who knows how much sleep he or she has had the night before.

I will check out those labor laws and see if there is something we can do for all the nurses there.

Thanks for the feedback.

Esther