Family & Military Nursing

[redskngolf]

First off, I'm sure that this has probably been discussed multiple times on here, but after looking through like 10 or more pages, I didn't see what I was looking for, so sorry if this is a repeat question to many of you.

My wife and I are both RNs, as well as prior service US Army. Me a medic and her a pharm tech. We have 2 boys who are currently 12 (as of today) and 9. As you can imagine, with both of us going through Nursing school at somewhat overlaping time periods, we incurred quite a lot of student loan debt. Now 4+ (for me) and 1 (for her) years post school, we are questioning if we made the right choices because we are being crushed by our student loan debt, and in a worse off spot than we were all those years ago, before starting this journey.

Over that past six months or so we have been talking about ways to alleviate some of our debt, and being prior service, the military always seems to come up. Well we are looking at it again, but more seriously this time, and I am in need of some help with a few questions we have.

1.) If we do this, only one of us would be going in, and I guess my question is, who? I have the higher amount of debt, but she thinks that it would be better for her to go in than me. Anyone have any insight or thoughts on this?

2.) What is the work/home life balance like as a military RN. Is it similar to civilian nursing. We were thinking that whoever doesn't go in could work contingent somewhere to be able to be home with the kids more.

3.) Pay wise, with base pay and bha, is it at all comparable to the civilian side. I am not delusional and understand that we wouldn't make as much, but how bad are we talking.

4.) Do you get any say in where you get stationed? I know this is probably a stupid question, but I told my wife I would ask.

5.) Since we were both young and single with no kids when we were in the military, we had no need to learn about any services that they offer for families. So any help there would be appreciated.

6.) I guess lastly I was just looking for some personal experiences from RNs in the military with families and what your experiences have been. We are so torn over this, but we know we have to do something and right now this is seeming like one of our better options.

Last couple of things (sorry for the long post), I am a peds ICU RN and she is adult Cardiac ICU, if that helps at all. We have already discussed the whole deployment thing and realize that it is a real possibility and have factored that into our interest.

Thanks to everyone for reading and I greatly appreciate any help or advice you might have to offer.

[Dranger]

If you looked over the last few pages you must have seen there are close to 0 nursing slots unless you are psych or OR (for the Army at least, AF/navy are similar). Yes, even ICU is over-strength.

Pay is decent especially BAH and for first duty station you can get a wishlist but it's needs of the military...which is never a good thing.

Loan pay back is getting cut and bonuses are nil.

This is one of the worst times to join for financial reasons IMO

[jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA]

Ah, a realist! Too many people are blinded by the stars and stripes and don't ask the right questions. I'm single and can't help with the family questions. However, I have seen both sides of the fence: civilian and military. All this is from an Air Force perspective. You must have a BSN for any branch. Your grades will matter.

1. The person whose social security number is attached to the most debt should join. Or, the person with the best grades in their BSN. It's very competitive right now. Know that only department of education loans will be eligible (your loans would be listed here: https://www.nslds.ed.gov/nslds_SA/).

2. You will find that active duty nursing is similar to full time civilian nursing. It varies depending on your commander. I work inpatient med-surg. We work 12 12-hr shifts per month and are on-call 2 12-hr shifts per month. There are additional duties (coordinating nursing student clinicals, infection prevention, etc) which will probably take an additional 10-20 hrs per month. You also have monthly flight, quarterly squadron meetings, and quarterly group meetings.

3. If your were prior enlisted for 4 years PLUS 1 day (means you did 6 years basically), then you will get O1E or O2E pay. That means you will make more than civilians for sure (unless you're in some kind of management role). It really depends on how much civilian experience you have. You come is as an O2E if you're prior enlisted plus have 48 months of civilian nursing experience. I make ~70K per year (however I'm overseas and get COLA) as an O1. An O1 in a crappy zip code will make at least 50K per year with the BAS and BAH.

4. You get some say where you'll go...just not much. You'll get to make a dream sheet and you will get one of your 10 choices. You can also pick by region. New nurses (even with experience) have to be at a hospital. Clinics aren't allowed. Critical care nurses like yourself will have even fewer options, assuming you apply as a critical care nurse.

5. No idea.

6. No idea. Just know that it will take nearly a year from the time you contact a recruiter to when you start training (if you get picked up the first time).

Most military facilities are are moving away from major medical centers and outsourcing critical care to the civilian sector to save money. Specialty ICUs are a dying breed. The acuity among military/VA patients is far lower in my opinion. Your patients won't be nearly as sick unless you deploy.

[Chief.Diego.Diaz]

Hi there, you got lots of questions!! Contrary to what the gentleman with the Army association said about the Navy, We are still hiring Nurses... but you would have to be a Midwife, Anesthetist Nurse, or Med/surg. I do have to agree with him on the rest, If I was in your situation I would consider one of you Goes active and the other tries to get a Job in the same hospital as a Civilian. If you have any questions about Navy nursing let me know, I'm a Navy Medical Officer program recruiter in the NY/NJ area.