Full Time vs. Part Time & PRN

[Murse_Rob]

Hi! I'm new to AllNurses so I hope I am putting this in the right place!

I just wanted to get some nurses' opinions on what they think about working at one full time job, compared to working at one job part time in addition to one job PRN.

I have worked in different areas of nursing throughout my nursing career (LTC, hospice, med-surg, ED/Trauma), but have found a home in emergency medicine. However, I found myself getting rather burned out, especially with COVID continuing to hit us hard, and it just seems that patient acuity continues to worsen, and patient tempers have seem to have gotten worse overall.

In the meantime, I had started teaching, and found a true love for that. I have dropped down to part-time (24hrs a week) in the ED, and have started teaching two days a week. I feel that this is such a great balance for me. I am lucky that I can get benefits through my ED position, and that I have a balance of the craziness of the ED/trauma, and the overall more calm setting of education.

I was wondering, does anyone else work like this? I think that I have kind of found a "Hack" with helping to prevent burn-out, at least in my case, and still working something equivalent to full-time. I also switched to evening shift (mid-shift) which means I don't have to wake up early, and I still get off at a somewhat normal time. It is very busy which I don't mind because when I'm in the ED I love the teamwork that happens when things get rough, and I love when my shift goes fast! I know not many other hospital specialties have a mid-shift option, and are generally just day or night shifts.

And yes there are downsides, such as not having certain employee benefits, not gaining as many bonuses (although there practically are none since COVID hit), not gaining seniority as fast, etc.). I still have to keep up with education, on-call, and a few other requirements for my ED job as they have not gone down. But overall I feel much happier in nursing and I believe that this will help me to avoid burnout, a key part in staying healthy in nursing.

Thanks everyone! ?

Rob