Contract nursing at Military/VA hospital

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Specializes in ICU.

I’m an enlisted reservist interested in moving to the PACNW from Florida and would love to pick up a civilian position at Madigan Army Medical Center or a VA hospital. I’ve heard the hiring process is very long. Is there a contract/temp nursing company that staffs these hospitals so I could get my foot in the door?

Background:

68W Medic for 12 years with 5 years nursing Med/Surg - PCU civilian hospital experience with an ASN degree.

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Specializes in Cardiology.

Ive never seen agency RNs at the VA I work at.

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Specializes in Care Coordination, General Surgery, Oncology.

Same as OUxPhys. I've only ever seen agency CNAs, and even that is rare at my VA.

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Specializes in ICU.

Wow, that begs the question; how do you guys adequately staff?

I understand we go through USA Jobs to apply but is there any efficient way of getting hired for the VA/DoD?

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Specializes in Operating room, ER, Home Health.

The Federal hiring process is not efficient in any manner. It can take anywhere from 3 months to 1 year to get hired.

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Specializes in Cardiology.
1 hour ago, medivac618 said:

Wow, that begs the question; how do you guys adequately staff?

I understand we go through USA Jobs to apply but is there any efficient way of getting hired for the VA/DoD?

Depends. Float pool (if your hospital has one), floats, or OT. VA is behind the times when it comes to staffing.

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Specializes in Care Coordination, General Surgery, Oncology.

My floor is almost always adequately staffed. We have a good culture and the folks who work here show up for work and there's not a huge turnover rate. my hospital doesn't have a float pool, though, so when other floors are not adequately staffed, we have to rearrange staffing from other floors to cover it...so that means my staff on my floor floats the most because we're the best staffed.

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Specializes in NP / USAFR Flight Nurse.

My VA hospital does not use outside staffing agencies (They used to.) Even the nursing home staffs from the hospital resource / float pool. The VA HR department is horrible and not very efficient. I was hired 5 years ago and it took 9 months from offer to start date. Currently transitioning from RN to APRN and it has been 6 months since my offer and I just got my start date for June 9th. Credentialing was completed in December.

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