Do your educators take call?

[Kristenlaurenw]

I recently accepted a position in LTC as an education coordinator (inservices, new employee orientation, and CNA training program). I am also expected to rotate on the call schedule with the unit supervisors (one mon- thurs call and one fri-sun call per 5 weeks). I'm beginning to orient by shadowing floor nurses and just learned that one of them is the old education coordinator that stepped down because she was called in all the time and also expected to do her own job. I've never worked LTC before, so I'm not sure how it works at other facilities. Do your educators take call? What if they have orientees, inservices, or CNA classes to teach?

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

Yes. The SDC/educator takes call. We ALL have jobs to do and it's not fun having to be on call and getting called in but fair is fair. The only ones not usually on call are the MDS nurses.

[BBP42]

The educator at my last LTC job took call rotation with everyone else. All full time RNs took their turn, and it was generally only one weekend every two months because everyone had to do it. Almost everyone got called in at some point on their weekend, and it made for a long week, but at least it wasn't that often. Yours seems like a lot because there are less people in the rotation, it sounds like it could get rough. Are they calling in people so frequently because of callouts or understaffing? If they are understaffed and burning out their people to fix it instead of hiring, I would not want that job.

[amoLucia]

to CCM - why was the MDS nurse exempted?

[BBP42]

Maybe the MDS was salaried and others were hourly?

[hibiscus6, BSN]

I am an MDS nurse at a 100 bed building; I take call 1 weekend in 5. I think a building's culture dictates whether the on-call managers are viewed as resources for the weekend staff, or as a PRN pool to cover for weekend call ins. In my place it's pretty rare that an on-call manager has to cover a shift (although it does happen once in a while). More often there are calls with questions about unusual situations. We try to work as a team.

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

I have 2 MDS nurses at my current facility. They don't take call. They wouldn't help on the floor if we had one staff person for the whole building. They are allowed to act this way since, unfortunately, they report to the administrator. I have never worked in a facility where the MDS nurse takes call. So I applaud you