Benefits over passion?

Nurses General Nursing

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I just graduated nursing school and am currently exploring my options. I have 3 children to support and am older, so I recognize the importance of those benefits that so many take for granted (pension, 401k, health insurance, etc.)

I interviewed for a position with the local VA Hospital and was given a verbal offer by the manager that upon passing the NCLEX and providing them with my license number, they would be making me an offer on their med surg floor. The benefits of working at the VA are amazing.

The problem is that I've wanted to be an OR nurse since the beginning of nursing school. I'd been set on applying to an OR Academy the last 2 years. Even since giving my verbal commitment to working at the VA, I have thought every day at least once about the OR.

I feel like I'd be stupid to give up the long-term benefits of the VA for the lackluster ones of a private hospital. Is it something that I can learn to love when I see the benefits, or will I always feel like I should have gone the OR route?

Did you take a job that wasn't your passion and later regret it?

I work in OR. When we are not busy like in summer, they send nurses home early. I don't mind this much because I am single with no kids, but my colleagues who support family have hard time.

I am a soon to be retired federal nurse. Absolutely go for the VA job. It's a good idea to have a general M/S background before applying for a specialty and the VA can be very difficult to get into for specialty positions. Those I feel (just my own experience) are saved for those that have given their loyalty and are rewarded with the specialty or sought after positions. i.e. picc nurse, etc.

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

Crunch the numbers. The blind adoration for a state or federal position, I had it once too, might not be so rosy when you total the actual gross and consider the cons that go along with working for such a system.

Crunch the numbers. The blind adoration for a state or federal position, I had it once too, might not be so rosy when you total the actual gross and consider the cons that go along with working for such a system.

Definitely crunch numbers. I left a state position almost 2 years ago. People could not believe I was leaving. To be fair, I was there long enough to take the health insurance with me, and the position I am in now pays close to double what I was making there. Yet it definitely is more work as well.

There are many factors to consider.

FYI the pension, while nice, isn't huge!

It's 1% of the average of your highest 3 (years of salary) if you are less than 62 years old or have less than 20 years of service when you leave, for each year of service.

It's 1.1% of the average of your highest 3 (years of salary) if you over 62 with 20+ years of service, for each year of service.

So if you work for 20 years and average 80k, that woud equal a pension of $17600 per year. So nice, but no huge.

Our HEALTH insurance is good (lots of options from really cheap to moderately expensive - but zero deductible), DENTAL is OK, Vision sucks. TSP (401k) is great, vacation time is abundant (but good luck being able to use it). The politics of advancing are tough though.

Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.

This is a tough question for which I have no answers, only a few thoughts. I, too, was an older , 2nd/3rd career new grad almost 2 yrs ago. I also was concerned with issues such as pension, union rights, benefits and retirement plans.

Therefore, when I graduated, I applied to a position in a solid company that provided all of the above.

It it is a med sure type of RN job and while I very much enjoy my work...I also dream of working in. Specialty critical care unit, such as ED or ICU.

I chose not to apply to an ED new grad program at a poor quality system without good employee support. Because I'm in this for the long run.

However, sometimes I look back on my decision and wonder if I should have gone for the specialty unit because I still want to work in ED/critical care.

many nurses start at a low income small hospital in a specialty unit and then later transfer to a big hospital with great benefits / perks in the same specialty.

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