Active Duty Shifts and culture

[jerrylundergard]

Im curious what the shifts are like for active duty nurses at major bases like ft. Lewis and ft. sam houston. How do you guys take report? Is it recordings or do you do live person handoffs? Do you guys leave on time at the end of your shifts usually? I cant stand leaving late and we are routinely working 7am - 9pm at my hospital and am hoping that wouldnt be a regular occurance in the army. How do you guys make your 40hrs? If you do 12 hr shifts do you throw in an extra shift and do 7 shifts every two weeks or is it 3 shifts a week and come in for a few hours to make your 40 per week? Do you guys feel like the respect and comraderie is better in army compared to civilian hospitals? Do they always threaten to write you up for this and that? I havent personally been threatened but was kinda suprised about the punitive and write up culture ive experienced at my hospital and wonder how it works in the army. Thanks for any insights.

[aglages]

Do you guys leave on time at the end of your shifts usually? I cant stand leaving late and we are routinely working 7am - 9pm at my hospital and am hoping that wouldnt be a regular occurance in the army. How do you guys make your 40hrs?

Good luck.

[AF46N3E]

Hello,

I actually work as a GS civilian in an Army hospital. I can tell you this...We do most everything the same as civilian hospital (we take report at the table etc) the only difference is that military hospitals tend to be more stringent than do the local civilian hospitals in their policies. This can make life working in a military hospital a little better than in a civilian hospital. The downside is that our active duty tend to work more hours than the civilian nurses, this is because there is no overtime paid to military nurses, no comp time, no nothing. If one of our civilian nurses calls out sick most definitely they will being a military nurse in before they pay overtime to another nurse to take the shift. In the military there is no calling out sick unless you go to sick call and get excused.

[Jarnaes]

I am an Army nurse and AF46N3E is 100% correct. You will most definitely put in some serious hours as an active duty nurse.