breaking your RN New Grad contract early

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Has anyone out there ever left their New Grad contract early? I am in a contract that states if I leave before 3 years is up I will have to pay them $30,000. This is the most I have EVER heard of especially for a non residency program. No courses were provided just regular orientation (8 weeks). For those of you who left your contract early, were there letters demanding money that were sent out? Did they take you to court?

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
I do remember my instructor during nursing school talk about contracts. He was saying the reason for contracts was because hospitals spend a lot of money hiring new grads yet once they get their 6 months to a year experience, they leave and go to the hospital that they initially wanted to stay at.

Your instructor is mistaken. New grad contracts exist for only one reason. There is a glut of new grads looking for work who are desperate enough to get employment that they will sign. In the not very distant future when a new grad could walk into pretty much any job they wanted, in any hospital, and the hospitals were competing for fewer grads, contracts where almost unheard of.

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My personal opinion is that if you take a new grad position with a fee, you should stay the whole time. The hospital's contract may or may not be enforceable but it's an ethics issue and you're "cheating" if you leave before the contract is up.

If I were going to take a contract like that, I'd put the $30,000 in a Money-market account and earn interest on it until the wo years were up and then if I finished the contract, then I'd fee free to spend it.

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Specializes in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation.
Your instructor is mistaken. New grad contracts exist for only one reason. There is a glut of new grads looking for work who are desperate enough to get employment that they will sign. In the not very distant future when a new grad could walk into pretty much any job they wanted, in any hospital, and the hospitals were competing for fewer grads, contracts where almost unheard of.

You mean the past right?

Not too sure if you were understanding my post (and I should have been more detailed), but I was trying to say that that contracts recently started becoming more common WAS because of the reason I mentioned...that current new grads are desperate for a job (this is why we new grads are so eager to take a hospital job especially with the current job market, at least here in southern CA) that they will work at any hospital for a duration just to get experience and then move onto the hospital of their dreams. A hospital doesn't want to invest and waste money on an employee that will leave and they would have to hire another new grad, thus have to waste more money and so on. Now, with the contract, at least the hospital can gets its money's worth if the employee stays at least two years or pays back a portion if they decide to leave.

@MierKat

My thoughts exactly, but then again, if one has never heard of that hospital, things could go wrong and you may be stuck there for 2 years or forced to break the contact. Of course, always look into a hospital and its reviews before jumping on board.

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Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
You mean the past right?

Yes thanks.

Not too sure if you were understanding my post (and I should have been more detailed), but I was trying to say that that contracts recently started becoming more common WAS because of the reason I mentioned...that current new grads are desperate for a job (this is why we new grads are so eager to take a hospital job especially with the current job market, at least here in southern CA) that they will work at any hospital for a duration just to get experience and then move onto the hospital of their dreams. A hospital doesn't want to invest and waste money on an employee that will leave and they would have to hire another new grad, thus have to waste more money and so on. Now, with the contract, at least the hospital can gets its money's worth if the employee stays at least two years or pays back a portion if they decide to leave.

I did understand what you were saying. The answer is the same. The contracts exist as a result of the glut of nurses available. Is the observation of many of us that since 2008 nurse's compensation has been falling, and working conditions getting worse. That is also when hospitals suddenly went from not being able to fill their positions, to having many applicants for each position.

Before the hospital would have to invest in the training and just take the chance the nurse would stay long enough for them to get a pay back. Few nurses would be willing to sign a contract when they could simply go to another hospital without a contract.

It was in a hospital's interest to try to retain those nurses and they did so by treating us better. Now there is no need for them to be nice to nurses since there is a line of people waiting for each position.

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Yes thanks.

I did understand what you were saying. The answer is the same. The contracts exist as a result of the glut of nurses available. Is the observation of many of us that since 2008 nurse's compensation has been falling, and working conditions getting worse. That is also when hospitals suddenly went from not being able to fill their positions, to having many applicants for each position.

Before the hospital would have to invest in the training and just take the chance the nurse would stay long enough for them to get a pay back. Few nurses would be willing to sign a contract when they could simply go to another hospital without a contract.

It was in a hospital's interest to try to retain those nurses and they did so by treating us better. Now there is no need for them to be nice to nurses since there is a line of people waiting for each position.

I was a hospital surveyor for my state and CMS 2000-2004, so I went into nearly every hospital, large and small, good and bad, in my state, and often found myself in conversations with the hospital nursing administration. Even then, before the economy tanked, nursing administration in many hospitals were talking about the new sense of entitlement they were experiencing with new grads, and also that there was much higher new grad turnover than the hospital had ever experienced before. While there wasn't the glut of nurses that there is now, there certainly was no shortage, and hospitals weren't having any difficulty filling positions. Many of them were deciding that it just wasn't worth taking the risk on new grads -- to invest a lot of time and money in their orientation, when there was an increasing chance that they were going to pick up and leave before the hospital saw any return on its investment. It was during this time that hospitals started posting "New grads need not apply" on their job postings, and people here started posting about seeing that in the job postings of different hospitals around the country. AFAIK, the "new grad contracts" are an attempt by hospitals to strike a compromise between getting taken advantage of, as they see it, by new grads, and just refusing to hire new grads entirely.

The situation already existed before the economy crashed; the crash just made it worse.

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Specializes in Ortho.

Do all new grad nurse positions require a contract? I'm in the predicament that My husband will be relocated due to the military 10 months after my graduation, but I want to get some sort of experience in that timeframe.

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Specializes in CVICU CCRN.
Do all new grad nurse positions require a contract? I'm in the predicament that My husband will be relocated due to the military 10 months after my graduation, but I want to get some sort of experience in that timeframe.

This is an old thread but just to put your mind at ease... No. if you want to start off in a specialty as a new grad, many hospitals have gone to a residency program that lasts a year or so. In return, they want you to sign a contract stating that if you leave before that time frame, you will be financially penalized due to the high cost of recruiting and developing staff.

Not all hospitals have residencies and not all residencies require such contracts. It is still possible to just be hired to a job as a new grad with no obligation. However, residencies are becoming more common, particularly if you are attempting to gain direct entry to OR, NICU, or ICU, for example. In my area, the larger hospitals have extended this to med/surg floors as well, mainly because of high turnover and the fact that med/surg is considered a specialty all its own, not just a "stepping stone" to critical care. New nurses were often getting one year of experience on the floors and then leaving asap, creating a terrible amount of turnover.

A lot of this is very location dependent and also varies by the size of the hospital. Large teaching hospitals are more likely to require residencies for new graduates. Hope that helps.

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Some of the advice you are receiving seems unkind. People have emotional responses to commitments of any kind, understandably, but I hope you are able to get some space from the feelings you or others have. The hospital I worked at had many attitudes towards nurses breaking contracts from casual to angry, although beyond threats, I don't know what actually happened with enforcement. Some nurses are into shaming and correcting others far too much. It is hard to enter a demanding career like nursing and know what you are really getting into. Take care of your own happiness without guilt. Whoever you are, you deserve it. When it comes to contracts, get some outside perspective from an attorney apart from the hospital. Things like misrepresentation, duress, or your basic capacity to fulfill the contract may come into play. The hospital is not a victim. If you feel like you are being treated unfairly, check it out. Even if you wind up paying, you will understand why you are paying and will be able to pay on a reasonable schedule. Good luck.

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I'm not a nurse, I'm a new nurse's husband. Her contract that I begged her not to sign calls for a flat $15,000 repay for 2 years. I don't think it's enforceable because it is usurious I'm relation to the $20/hour they started her at. She also works 14 hours, not 12, so she could argue that. The contract specifies it is for training costs, but there has been no formal training, only orientation which basically consists of doing the job of the nurse on duty. Finally, it simply says if she resigns...so, don't resign, just stop showing up or stop charting or get there late and leave early...if you're fired, you didn't quit. Because nurse employment is not public record, just don't put it on your resume.

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Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
I'm not a nurse, I'm a new nurse's husband. Her contract that I begged her not to sign calls for a flat $15,000 repay for 2 years. I don't think it's enforceable because it is usurious I'm relation to the $20/hour they started her at. She also works 14 hours, not 12, so she could argue that. The contract specifies it is for training costs, but there has been no formal training, only orientation which basically consists of doing the job of the nurse on duty. Finally, it simply says if she resigns...so, don't resign, just stop showing up or stop charting or get there late and leave early...if you're fired, you didn't quit. Because nurse employment is not public record, just don't put it on your resume.

Don't do the stop charting thing, that could cost her nursing license. As for not showing up or deliberately being late to get fired and leaving it off the resume, also not a good idea. First she will be asked what she was doing during that time period, second she won't be able to take credit for that time as experience and her pay at the new place will be based on her years of experience, third, nursing is it's own community and its common for nurses to have contacts all over the region. She could easily be unofficially black listed.

She made the choice to sign the contract, I suggest she fulfill her two years as being the best option for her career, even if she can find a way to get out of it without paying the $15K.

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I'm not a nurse, I'm a new nurse's husband. Her contract that I begged her not to sign calls for a flat $15,000 repay for 2 years. I don't think it's enforceable because it is usurious I'm relation to the $20/hour they started her at. She also works 14 hours, not 12, so she could argue that. The contract specifies it is for training costs, but there has been no formal training, only orientation which basically consists of doing the job of the nurse on duty. Finally, it simply says if she resigns...so, don't resign, just stop showing up or stop charting or get there late and leave early...if you're fired, you didn't quit. Because nurse employment is not public record, just don't put it on your resume.

You may be right that the contract is not enforceable. Both sides have to provide something of value, and the employer is already obligated to make sure the employee can do their job. So, orientation wouldn't count. They also have to specify what they are providing and they have to live up to their end of the bargain.

Getting fired is a bad idea for many reasons. And, if it ends up the contract actually is valid, getting fired may not get her off the hook for the money, anyway.

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Because nurse employment is not public record, just don't put it on your resume.

This is poor advice, IMO. Many healthcare employers do financial background checks that do reveal all past employment. Applications typically request (demand) that you list all your previous employment in the last X number of years. If you leave off employment that they have requested and the employer finds out about it, most healthcare employers will consider that dishonesty sufficient to eliminate you from consideration for the job. Also, nursing tends to be a small "club." If the new job-hunting is in the same area as the job you left on bad terms, there is a good chance that other healthcare employers in the area are aware of the situation.

It's never a good idea, in nursing, to leave a job on bad terms if one can possibly avoid it. You never know when that is going to come back and bite you in the butt, maybe even years later.

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