I will be graduating nursing school next year, and I am trying to figure out what I want to do. I was wondering what kind of positions there are out there that I do not have to work every other weekend, and a holiday. I am a huge family person, and being with my family at night and holidays is very important to me! I do not want to make a lousy salary as well.
I do not care about working one weekend a month, but the every other is something I am not interested in. What kind of jobs do you guys have and the hours? Is the pay okay as well.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a slew of nursing students who believe because there is a "nursing shortage" they will be able to find jobs without any difficulty, and therefore finding the Dream Employment (ie: no evenings, nights, weekends or holidays) is just a matter of looking around a bit more. What they don't realize is there is no one holding the door open for them because there is no great need for waves of new grads. Nope.
Even if there was a nursing shortage, wouldn't they NEED weekend and holiday nurses the most?
I honestly thought (before joining AN) it was common knowledge that nurses work holidays and weekends and sometimes over 40 hours a week. Did people forget that nursing is to help people, do they think these people take the weekend and holidays off from needing nursing care? Seriously.
I work Mon-Fri, get most holidays off and am well compensated, but you aren't yet qualified for my position. I got my experience working a few years of weekends and holidays, and fortunately only several months of nights.
And there you have it. Some exceptions exist, but for the most part new nurses have to "pay their dues," so to speak, working the odd hours. More doors will certainly open up after a year or more of experience.
Specializes in Acute Care - Adult, Med Surg, Neuro.
Hmmm, bring on the people like this! I'm not a new grad, but I'm willing to work all the weekends and holidays I can get. I need the money to pay off my student loans.
I've never had to work every other weekend. I've always worked places that had self-scheduling. Yes, we had minimum weekend requirements, but for example, if your requirement is 5 weekends every six weeks and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday count as weekend, you can either knock those requirements out in two weeks and have the other 4 weekends off, or you can work 1 weekend shift a week for five weeks. I don't think Sunday night really feels like a weekend anyway - regular non-nursing people have to go to work Monday morning anyway, so it's not like people usually hang out on Sunday nights. I typically knock my requirements out with a lot of Sundays.
Damn, i worked every weekend for the past 3.5 years. But honestly, you cant pick and choose, you think other people dont want to spend time with their family too ? Sacrifices will need to be made. I'm not saying you need to or should work every holiday, but pick a day to work either christmas or new years. I rarely hear about people mandated to work both of these holidays. You gotta pay your dues
I went into peritoneal dialysis right out of school but that was a rare job and I was a special snowflake back then. There are jobs like that out there but it will take an act of congress to get one as a new grad.
if you don't want to work nights, holidays and weekends, then basically you need to get out of nursing.
You are going to need a lot of experiance before you get anywhere close to the hours you want.
As for the money, if I quite working nights, weekends and holidays withthe same exact job I currently have (like they would ever allow that) I would ben up taking about a $250 a week pay cut.
Wait a quick minute. Some of you get paid extra to work weekends? I need to work at a place like that. I love working my evert other weekend. There's less traffic :)
To the OP- I'm a new grad. It took me almost two years to find a job and I wasn't picky. Now, after working for just under a year at a hospital where I'm night shift, every other weekend, and almost every holiday, I have found that it's the best. I still have family time. I still get to do the things we enjoy. Instead of my husband and I spending every other weekend doing housework like my sister and her husband who both do 8-5 jobs, he does the housework on the weekends I'm working and I do it mid week when he is working. We also celebrate holidays after the fact. Turkeys and ham are always discounted after anyways.
Yup there is a premium for working weekends many places. Working PMs or nights on weekends is really sweet since you make shift and weekend differentials together!
there are positions out there, but you really have to search. The company I work for does not have the nurses working weekends and for the holidays, its only triaging emergency calls only (no going out) and I was able to set the schedule where we only "work" one holiday a year. But that being said, it is rare. Once nurses find these positions, they stay! My team of nurses has been here 15+ years. I really lucked out, they pushed me into the DON position, because the DON have to come into the office a few days a week! They work from home/beach/spa...
I've answered this question before and usually my first thought is free standing surgery centers which are a great place to work because they usually don't do surgery on weekends or holidays.
Hospice, for me, has a pretty flexible schedule where you can choose to be per diem, part-time, full-time.
School nursing is great as well because you can work in the school where your kids go to school and you have the summer off and all the same holidays.
FWIW, I used to work in an ambulatory surgery center, and we NEVER EVER hired a new grad. Had to be experienced as an RN before you got in the door. School nursing, while I haven't done it personally, seems to require a healthy amount of experience first (as it should!!); in my region, I do happen to know the line of competition for the rare opening is long and heavy. Haven't seen/heard of a new grad anywhere in a school nursing spot within two counties for.....well, ever.
In your experience new grads were able to find themselves jobs in an acute setting without med-surg, that's great! It's also not common enough to consider it a plan for graduation, UNLESS the OP also lives in such a rare community :)
It's more common to NEED that year or two in med-surge to even get LOOKED at for one of the positions the OP is thinking she'll get.
.thumb.jpg.5d8fa9b66c1daee6d7d146447daa5c26.jpg){kind=small}
LittleCandles
195 Posts
Even if there was a nursing shortage, wouldn't they NEED weekend and holiday nurses the most?
I honestly thought (before joining AN) it was common knowledge that nurses work holidays and weekends and sometimes over 40 hours a week. Did people forget that nursing is to help people, do they think these people take the weekend and holidays off from needing nursing care? Seriously.