Have you ever broken your contract???

[Jean1313]

Hi,

I have posted before here about leaving my specialty area. I have "hung in there" now for 5 months. I went to a nursing program with a 2 yr commitment. From August '07 to October '08, I worked in Psych. I went to medical nursing Oct '08 & remain here until April, hopefully.

My biggest issue: I can't apply online until April 12th, which I guess = 6 months. Then I do the resume/interview process (if I am really lucky, a month). THEN I put in notice... So one can see how this will EASILY = 8 months of med-surg. And that's if my nurse manager doesn't hold me up to the 3 months that I guess she's allowed to hold me.

I am so frustrated. My BF and family say "It's just another month" but it's not. They say "be grateful you have a job" which I am. But it doesn't change the unhappiness I deal with when there.

Have you ever broken your contract? Was it worth it? I won't last 4 more months.

[jjensen]

I have never had a contract and guess that I don't understand what will happen if you 'break' it... If your health and well being is suffering and you cannot "hang in there" then I would get another job... Nothing is worth you going through this...

[whipping girl in 07, RN]

I have never had a contract to break, but I know people who have. You will just have to find out how much you'll have to pay if you break it and decide if it's worth it. If you do, make sure you have another job first.

Unfortunately, some of the problems of nursing are problems everywhere, or you may trade one set of problems for some that are truly worse. I had a job a few years ago that I absolutely adored, but then the nurse manager left, we moved to a beautiful but poorly designed unit, we got an assistant nurse manager with whom I clashed, I ended up having the nurse manager I had interviewed with and not liked so I didn't go to work in his unit take over as our nurse manager, they took away our scrubs, they kept adding new tasks but no new help and many of the RNs I loved working with left one by one. In 3 years it went from the perfect job to a place I detested so much I would get a headache just driving in.

I'm sorry you're having problems. I hope you can figure out how to work through them.

[ChristineN, BSN, RN]

I'm currrentally working under a 4 year contract (I'm almost one year in) that I am contemplating breaking. While I have the best job in the world, I may end up moving out of state if my boyfriend ends up going to grad school. What I would have to do to "break" my contract is pay back the entire value of my contract (mine is over $9,000) plus a couple hundred dollars in early termination fees, all in one lump sum. I believe that if I ever moved back to the area, I would still be eligible for rehire, assuming I leave on good terms. Since my hospital chain doesn't own any hospitals in the state I'm going too, I can't just transfer and would need to break the contract.