I'm having difficulty finding statistics concerning this and average salary.
If you could also tell me the salary you earned (or average) straight out of college, that would be awesome. Also, as a new grad, should I expect flexible hours? Ideally, I would be able to work part-time elsewhere because I don't know what to do with my four days off.
Also, are new grads able to easily find positions in hospitals of different states? I don't want to settle down just yet.
Why do you think the company has no responsibility for training its own employees? Would you prefer the employee pay you during their own orientation? Perfect example of how this is an employers' market - but that won't last forever.
OP - you are going to have to have BLS as a requirement for your clinicals. That's a non-issue.
Training and orientation are different things. Orientation is to familiarize the new employee with the particulars of the agency, not train them in intrinsic requirements of the job.
If you were building a house, would you hire an electrician who wanted you to pay for his learning to install, say, 220 volt wiring? Or would you prefer to hire someone with those skills already?
Or course, as you say, the employers' market won't last forever. But you'd best have sufficient savings to buy groceries while you're waiting for the turnaround.
It's $185 for ACLS/PALS classes here in Ohio. I just got BLS certified, which you'd need prior to starting clinicals. I asked a few of my nurse friends about the other 2 classes & they both told me their work paid for the ACLS class. It seems you'd need PALS if you were going into pediatrics.
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
*** ya that's true. However, for some reason all the hospitals in my area require all newly hired acute care nurses to go through ACLS regardless of their certification status at hire..
I work in a high stress cardiac ICU. We run labs, hang blood products when pts are dumping liters of blood out of their chest,, run ECMO, CRRT, sedate patients during bedside procedures such as bronchoscopies, chest tube insertions, PICC line placements etc. I cause people pain, i get yelled out and swatted at by confused patients. i insert IVs, I remove central lines and pray my patient can follow instructions about holding their breath so they dont die of a pulmonary air embolus. I admit patients that are dying when flown in off the helicopter before they go for emergency surgery, inform families their loved one is dying. I wipe watery diarrhea of off butts every day, I've had sputum fly out of a trach onto my arm, and my coworker had had her scrub top saturated in projectile vomit. I "fix" abnormal heart rhythms by operating a temporary pacemaker box with wires that are screwed inside of someone's heart tissue. I know my IV meds and know exactly when to give what. It's not uncommon for my patient to have 8 drips at once. As one of my co-workers said, "we are not compensated appropriately for what we do, which is pulling people out from the jaws of death".
I said all this to say... I get paid $20 an hour. I get one 30 minute meal break that is UNPAID, and I rarely have time for this. Now, what really upsets me is that I went to school and studied hard for 4 years to obtain my BSN. I also become certified in ACLS and PALS before graduating.
My husbands mother did not go to college, and just accepted a $30/hour job to "keep the books" of a mattress company. I hope she enjoys her 1 hour lunch break and nice salary while I'm trying to keep someone alive for $20/hour.
I'm doing just fine, thanks. And fortunately, my area isn't full of cheap-skate hospitals that don't pay for ACLS.
Training and orientation are different things. Orientation is to familiarize the new employee with the particulars of the agency, not train them in intrinsic requirements of the job.
If you were building a house, would you hire an electrician who wanted you to pay for his learning to install, say, 220 volt wiring? Or would you prefer to hire someone with those skills already?
Or course, as you say, the employers' market won't last forever. But you'd best have sufficient savings to buy groceries while you're waiting for the turnaround.
Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
Are the charging?????
*** Oh no, not only do they pay, they pay us to sit through the classes. As of course they must if they require it. At this time I am lobbying to end the requirement for all of our acute care nurses be ACLS qualified. They don't get enough chance to use the ACLS training and one of us (the RRT RNs) is always on the scene very quickly, if not there before the code is called. Besides the staff RNs don't do anything other than bring the crash cart and CPR before we get there. I have never yet seen one of our staff RNs defib anyone or administer epi, even when that was obviously what was called for.
It's a huge waste of money making all of them go through ACLS and many of them hate it. We have had to lower the standards for passing since at this time it is a requirement for their job and many of them are very non-motivated, old, or unfit to preform much if any CPR.
rngolfer53
681 Posts
Training and orientation are different things. Orientation is to familiarize the new employee with the particulars of the agency, not train them in intrinsic requirements of the job.
If you were building a house, would you hire an electrician who wanted you to pay for his learning to install, say, 220 volt wiring? Or would you prefer to hire someone with those skills already?
Or course, as you say, the employers' market won't last forever. But you'd best have sufficient savings to buy groceries while you're waiting for the turnaround.