I'm a new grad RN who got her first real nursing job working at a SNF. The SNF I work at is attached to a hospital, which while I was originally not excited to work at a SNF I was excited for the opportunity for advancement into the hospital into one of their med/surg units, etc. Turns out, I really do like working at the SNF. I like my coworkers, the residents, and feel comfortable here. But working at a SNF is not part of my long term goals.
I have worked at the SNF for four months now, so I am just about to get off my probationary "new hire" period soon. Therefore, I wanted to try applying to the hospital and see if I can get a job there, because I feel as if working in Med/Surg would at least get me closer to my ultimate goal of doing something more acute, such as critical care.
But my dilemma is that I feel like I'm disrespecting my employers at the SNF for "jumping ship" basically as soon as I can to work over at the hospital. My ideal situation would be to work at the SNF per diem every other weekend (which is what they originally hired me for, but of course they have me in a 32hr/week position still even with my per diem role). I do feel obligated to them to give them at least a year of my time since they were the first people to believe in me and offer me a job. I don't want anyone to be disappointed or judge me that I would either leave the SNF completely or go down to working there every other weekend.
One last detail: My boyfriend and I do plan to leave the area and move up closer back home where he would have a lot more opportunities to get a job in the field he's about to join. So even if I do apply to the hospital and got a job, I would only stay at the unit for 7 months at most because our lease is up in September and we would move back up closer to our families. So that's another added stress of secretly not even giving the hospital unit a year of my time for being so generous and hiring a new grad onto their unit.
Should I just avoid all this mess and work solely at the SNF for now? Or should I be a little more "selfish" and see if I can get a job that would give me more opportunities to advance to critical care even though I'd secretly only work there for 7 months? I would have to try and find a new job in September despite what I do in this situation because we will 100% be moving away, and I'm not sure if a year's worth of just working at a SNF will give me the best chances at getting a new job rather than working at the SNF *AND* working at the attached hospital for ~7mo would. I could also just apply to a different hospital that's much closer to where I live and tell the SNF that I can't do the commute anymore. But there's still the issue of only giving that hospital 7 months of my time.
This all makes me feel so fake and self absorbed, like I'm not considering what anyone else's feelings or staffing needs are Am I overthinking everything??
Thank you for reading my rambles, I appreciate any input or advice you all have for me.
Specializes in Pharmaceutical Research, Operating Room.
What hospitals ask for lab work from employees??
What hospitals have 5 month orientation periods?
Uh, that would be the hospital I used to work for, which was part of a hospital system in the southeast that was internationally recognized and praised for how "amazing" they were (worst place I've ever worked, but that's another topic for another discussion).
They required pre-employment labs. My orientation in the OR was a full 6 months long.
As far as the rest of your questions in that post, I have no clue how any of those numbers are calculated.
The answer to this is often, if titers and vaccines are not up to snuff, or if a pre-employment drug screen is administered.
Vaccines and titers don't cost up to 1000 dollars. A preemployment drug screen is ~60 dollars.
Drug Testing and Criminal Background Test: $300
Physical Assessment, Lab: $1,000
Also, reread this. It has a separate cost for drug testing, then another cost for labwork. 1300 dollars, including the physical and background check. Real legit.
As far as the rest of your questions in that post, I have no clue how any of those numbers are calculated.
That is because they aren't calculated. A DON from an irrelevant hospital in Long Island NY arbitrarily wrote them in.
My orientation in the OR was a full 6 months long.
OR orientations are about the longest out of any hospital orientations and as such has no place being cited as representative or typical of an average length of hospital orientation for a nurse, especially in an article designed to estimate the average cost of hiring a new nurse. 5 or 6 months is about the farthest outlier when it comes to hospital orientations and I'm quite sure that most people here know that. It is more like 8 to 12 weeks.
My ICU orientation was 6 months, but it was a new grad residency program. I am certain the costs of this are significant. I believe your run of the mill orientation is nowhere near this costly, but there are certainly costs to orienting new employees, and probably vary from facility to facility.
One final thing: pre-employment costs are not specific to hiring new nurses. That is stuff ALL new employees have to go through, experienced or not, nurse or not, and therefore again should not be disingenuously attributed to "the cost of hiring a new nurse." They are the costs of hiring ANY new employee and for functioning as a large corporate business. Payroll benefits and the hospital's electric bill doesn't have any bearing in the discussion of hiring a new nurse versus an experienced nurse versus any other dodgy thing you can come up with.
To those arguing that hiring new nurses is so costly: administration loves you. You're thinking exactly like how they would want you to, because they use your arguments to try and cut down payroll as much as they can while shorting the unit of staff. "Hiring new people costs too much, sign everybody up for overtime instead." Nice work.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
No, it wasn't close to any reality. That article is TERRIBLE. Seriously, how is a preceptor's medical insurance part of the cost of hiring a new nurse? They would be paying the preceptor benefits even if they DIDN'T hire a new nurse. It isn't as if they hired a preceptor from outside the hospital to orient someone, but that is what the article would have you believe. What is a mandatory review and how does performing one cost $5000?
Since when is labwork part of a pre-employment physical? Who orients nurses for ONE month in the classroom plus FIVE months on the floor? Where do nurse educators spend an hour every single day with an orientee? Nursing education departments do more education and training for existing staff then for new nurses, so why is that cost factored into "hiring a new nurse?" That article is clearly designed to lead people into an anti new nurse mentality. If you think otherwise, you aren't very discerning.
The last two hospitals in which I've worked have trained ICU nurses for 6-8 months. The classroom days are interspersed with days on the unit, but they get at least 30 days of class time in those 6-8 months. An experienced nurse gets 12 weeks or less orientation.
Am I overthinking everything?? 
flying_ace2
193 Posts
Uh, that would be the hospital I used to work for, which was part of a hospital system in the southeast that was internationally recognized and praised for how "amazing" they were (worst place I've ever worked, but that's another topic for another discussion).
They required pre-employment labs. My orientation in the OR was a full 6 months long.
As far as the rest of your questions in that post, I have no clue how any of those numbers are calculated.