Pros and Cons of working for the VA

Specialties Government

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I will be starting the VA hospital in two weeks... I am very anxious to start and was wondering if anyone could give me pros and cons of working there.... Thank you for your responses!!!

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Congrats & welcome to the VA!!! I believe it varies from facility to facility, but in my experience I absolutely LOVE working for the VA. It is a different system and it takes some getting used to, I'm sure you will see what I mean when you get the hang of things. For me that is the only Con. No organization is perfect, but working for the VA is as good as it gets. I love my job, vets, coworkers, and the organization itself. I feel appreciated at my VA like they value having me as an employee and want to keep me happy :) My career is really just beginning and I know I plan on being there until retirement. I hope you have a wonderful experience.

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Congrats & welcome to the VA!!! I believe it varies from facility to facility, but in my experience I absolutely LOVE working for the VA. It is a different system and it takes some getting used to, I'm sure you will see what I mean when you get the hang of things. For me that is the only Con. No organization is perfect, but working for the VA is as good as it gets. I love my job, vets, coworkers, and the organization itself. I feel appreciated at my VA like they value having me as an employee and want to keep me happy :) My career is really just beginning and I know I plan on being there until retirement. I hope you have a wonderful experience.

Thank you soo much!!! It seems I'm only hearing great things about the VA how wonderful!!!! I'm sooo excited about starting!!

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I have worked in many different systems. I have worked in for-profit hospitals and non-profit hospitals. Regular and teaching hospitals, and religious hospitals as well. Even with the things that can be annoying at the VA it is the best system I have worked for so far and I would not go back to working for a "regular" hospital at this time.

One of the biggest pro's at my hospital (not sure if this applies to all hospitals) is this: Doctors are employees, just like you.

I find that in regular hospitals it seems that MD's hold a large amount of power over the nurses. Hospitals depend on the doctors to make money, if a doctor is angry and doesn't admit patients to the hospital then the hospital doesn't make money. So they have a certain degree of power if there is a conflict between docs and nurses.

I have not really seen this at the VA. Since both doctors and nurses are actual employees of the hospital that power over nurses is not there and it seems like there is a lot less hostility between docs and nurses because of that.

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Wow!!! Thanks. Good to know.... I have absolutely NOTHING to compare the VA to since this will be my first job as a RN

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Specializes in OBGYN.

hi all, question, I am about to start working at VA, I am a new LPN grad. I heard VA can help paying student loans. Is it possible for VA help me pay my LPN loans? Does anyone knows how the process works? Thanks you!!

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