Agency vs. Hospital

jsteine1 · Aug 25, 2005

Can anyone tell me whats best, working for an agency or hospital. Any experience's or comment would help!!

Sirena, it depends on where you are in your career. Agency work is tough, you never know where you're going to be working and in addition to managing new patients all the time, you have to quickly orient yourself to policies, where things are and to some extent the culture of a new place. If you've got just a short time, ie 2 yrs or less, under your belt, a hospital might be the better choice.

suzanne4, RN · Aug 26, 2005

You need to have minimum of one year of hospital experience before you can even consider working agency............you are expected to be able to function 100% on your own with minimal orientation.

If you have been following any of the threads here of nurses in their first year, you will see exactly what we are speaking of. You cannot expect to graduate one day, and begin work as an agency nurse the nest day. You need to get the experience first, many facilities are now requiring that the agency nurse have at least two years experience, and not the one year.