Speciality Differential?

sjoe · Feb 7, 2003

"our ICU's and ED are always short-staffed. The extra money was an attemp to lure people to those areas and encourage the existing staff to stay"

And a little extra pay is MUCH cheaper than training interested nurses in those fields, is another way of saying this. Nobody wants to train and they all want specially-trained people. Duh!

Gomer · Feb 7, 2003

Originally posted by caroladybelle
Sorry Guys,

We are all specialists - we all deserve the pay.

I agree. It doesn't matter which department one works in, education and certifications should determine the extra money. To me all RN's are equal no matter where they work in a hospital.

onco gal · Feb 7, 2003

Sorry, but all RN's are not equal. Those RN's who take the time and spend the money on certifications and education should be paid more if their performance warrants it.

At our facility they base pay on experience when you are hired. We have had nurses with 25-30 yrs of "experience" that still do not know how to think critically and are just doing their time. Because of the shortage holes are being filled period. Everyone should be alarmed by this. We are all being told we have to learn more for the same pay. But those of us who are willing to go the "extra mile" (and this should always be a matter of choice)

don't get a dime more.

llg, PhD, RN · Feb 7, 2003

Originally posted by sjoe
"our ICU's and ED are always short-staffed. The extra money was an attemp to lure people to those areas and encourage the existing staff to stay"

And a little extra pay is MUCH cheaper than training interested nurses in those fields, is another way of saying this. Nobody wants to train and they all want specially-trained people. Duh!

To: Sjoe: You made a wrong assumption in this case. The post you quoted is mine. My hospital prides itself on its thorough orientation. The ICU and ED orientations are 16 weeks long, with extra time added if needed. The programs include both classroom and preceptored experiences. The new nurse (experienced or new grad) does not take his/her own assignment until AFTER orientation. We are very strict about this. A preceptor/orientee pair is only given a "one person" assignment, not more.

Also, all new grads are assigned a mentor for up to a year.

Of course, all preceptors and mentors receive extra pay for their efforts.

Don't be so quick to make assumptions when you don't have all the facts. That's why "assessment" is the first step in the nursing process. You could have asked me if we had a good training program before you assumed we did not.

We only went to offering an ICU/ED differential AFTER we were sure that all our other options had been tried.

llg

Daisy · Feb 7, 2003

our hospital pays for national certification, about a $1.50 per hour. Its great but it costs close to $300 to recertify and now the ANCC is requiring 50% of your inservice time must be ANCC approved. That is very costly. I don't think we should be paid for having a specialty. Every department is a specialty now. Can anyone really work everywhere? Probably not, so let the specialists in their own departments do their thing.

Zee_RN, BSN, RN · Feb 7, 2003

No speciality pay in my hospital. No certification pay. Our facility does not pay for education related to certification, CEUs for certification or any other cost associated with certification.

spineCNOR · Feb 7, 2003

Re: specialty pay--I totally agree with the above posters who said EVERY area of nursing is a specialty, so I do not think that there should be a specialty differential as such.

I do think that there should be a pay differential for specialty certification - CNOR, CEN, CCRN, CPAN, etc, etc....

The hospitals in my area do not offer this for the most part, and there are very few RN's in my department (OR) that are certified.

My hospital does pay specialty differential for certified scrub techs, but not RNs--now what kind of sense does that make???

(In this geographical area OR RNs are harder to come by than techs)

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Feb 8, 2003

I am a certified Oncology nurse. I became certified because I believe in being the best Onco nurse that I can be and while extra money for it would be nice, it is not why I became certified. I take numerous courses and read up regularly on the latest treatments for the benefit of doing my job well.

I personally know ICU/ER staff that would crash and burn on med-surg. I also know med-surg nurses that would drown in the ER/ICU. I frequently have to go to ER/ICU to give chemo or access ports - they give us advice on cardiac drips. We all work these different places because they have an attraction for us, for whatever reason.

As far as as the shortage of ICU/ER nurses, you might note that many of those ads are also for med-surg - I feel the pay dif for those departments (not necessarily certified) just alienates departments from each other, like hiring bonuses alienate the veteran nurses from the newbies. While certification may rate extra pay, I don't feel that being part of a certain unit should.