fuultime or part time?

[ellamae28]

hello!

i'm new to nursing and i would like some inputs from the nurses.

how is part time different from fulltime.

i've been working ft (for 2-3 months already) in er and today i got a job offer to work part time in orthopedic floor. i would like to try ortho coz i'm a physiotherapist from my home country plus the fact the hospital that is offering me pt job is closer to where i'm staying. i heard that they pay you in lieu for the benefits and talked to them a while ago that i can buy my benefits and work ft hours still.

my inquiry would be, would it worth the risk to quit from my ft in er (by the way the hospital is 1 1/2 hours from home) to move to ortho and do pt job? i love er it is just that it is to far coz i take the bus plus i'm scared when winter comes.

any advice will be greatly appreciated.

[thegoose]

Hello,

I suppose it will depend on a few things. I can give you information that pertains to the ONA's collective agreement, but that will only be relavent if you are working in ontario at a unionized hospital.

Part time you do get paid 13% in lieu of benefits. You can purchase your own insurace if you want as you will have no coverage. Alot of people go the part time route if thier spouse has good benefits that cover/overlap.

You do not get paid for sick time, and you don't get paid vacation days.

You can work just as many hours as full time staff, if not more and you are only obligated to work ever other weekend (or every third weekend in some cases)

You have to sign a committment document which states how many shifts at a minium you want per pay. That committment is between 2-4.

Obviously you can and will work more, but if push comes to shove and for some reason not alot of shifts are available, they have to at least guarentee you your committment (ie. 4 shifts in two weeks if that's what you agreed to)

Also I found when I was part time, because of senority, I was usually assigned available shifts last, so at first when the secdule was comming out I would have maybe 4 in a pay period, but as things became available and if I wanted more shifts, I would have to pick them up on the fly, or in some cases they would just be assigned to me. I found that annyoing becuase they always seemed to coincide with days I had plans for, so I would have to rearrange thigns.

A good thing about part time is you can 'x' yourself out on days you don't want to work if you know ahead of time.

So it's really up to your preference of how you want to work.

You can always get into full time at your new job from part time when the position comes up. With the communte to ER being 1.5 hrs that would be something to consider.

best of luck