How much experience before being charge nurse

[babysteps25]

I just surpassed my one year mark last week, so technically not my first year anymore but I still feel very much like a new grad so I hope I am welcome to keep posting here for a long time!

I was just wondering how much experience someone usually has before becoming a charge nurse. I am on a medsurg unit and we rotate being charge rn.

Unfortunately we have an extremely high turnover rate of staff. People keep quitting or getting fired. With only one year of experience I am somehow one of the more experienced people on my unit. Also my unit is considered toxic by the float pool - they apparently argued so much about having to come to my unit that they keep a record of when they do and its now mandatory for them to take their turn without complaining. There are still several on my unit with more experience, but a lot of the people I work with are even green-er than I am. It scared me like crazy one day when I realized I was the most experienced person there. Newer grads were coming to me with questions. Questions I sometimes didn't have answers to. My manager took the role of charge nurse that day but then was gone at a meeting almost all day so all problems were coming to me. The next day I was there again but with some experienced people from the float pool. They asked me why I don't just consider doing the brief charge nurse training and being in charge. They acknowledged it might be difficult with only a year of experience but that I could probably get by. Is it expected for people to start being in charge on medsurg units after only a year? Am I behind if I don't feel ready for it?

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

Where I work, the charge nurse on nights always takes a full load of patients, sometimes 1 less but that rarely happens. We are responsible for making the assignments, assigning admits/transfers to the nurses and accepting patients from the supervisor when they call stating they need a bed. Sometimes I will refuse an assignment, like one time when the supervisor called with a pediatric patient (forgot how old, pre-school age, I think) who OD'd on clonidine but unsure on how much. Pt was bradycardic and slightly hypotensive. I questioned this and said the patient should probably be shipped out to the PEDIATRIC HOSPITAL 30 minutes away.

Along with that, the charge nurse is also responsible for checking the crash carts and for damage control/putting out fires. They also serve as a resource person on the unit.

I was thrown into being charge with just a few months of experience, then after I got more experience (over a year) they slowly starting making me charge again. Now I'm almost always put in charge when I work, even when I am working with nurses with a heck of a lot more experience than me (um, 2 years vs. 20+ years?). We get paid extra to be in charge, but sometimes it just isn't worth it.

Sometimes I feel like ALL I do (aside from caring for my patients) is put out fires all night.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

I also wanted to add that in Ohio, they required at least 2 years of experience before being charge. At least at the hospitals I worked/had clinicals at.

[Morainey, BSN, RN]

I started being rotated through charge on nights after a year, I think it was. We have an official charge nurse class but I never took it.

[obizyanka]

I get a whole 50cents more/ hr to be charge. Totally not worth it to me.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

I get a whole 50cents more/ hr to be charge. Totally not worth it to me.

For us, it is $1. I agree, some nights it just isn't worth it. At all.

[DalekRN]

Our charge nurses don't take patients, they just changed the policy. It has made a world of difference.

[~PedsRN~, BSN, RN]

It was about 15 months for me before I was put into the charge role... they needed someone for the weekends, and I'm a weekender. I am not *always* charge, which is a relief - becuase I LOVE bedside care.

We do carry one to two patients as Charge nurse, but they are "charge" patients, and are typically super easy, little to no meds, etc.