Military experience in nursing

carolinapooh, BSN, RN · Jun 8, 2013

The mods might want to move this to the military forum.

My unsolicited advice - and I'm currently active duty - is to stay in right now. Even with experience, jobs are hard to find. And hospitals are laying people off, cutting benefits - every day when I hear from my friends who are still civilian RNs, I am literally grateful for all the things I don't have to worry about, even with the crap we put up with. I'll take some of these ridiculous extra duties and silly hoops we jump through any day over worrying about if I'll have a job next month or not. And I have friends who are doing that.

If she does get out, do not resign that commission. Once you give it up, you cannot get it back, and you might need it as a lifeline. When she goes to separation counseling, they'll explain what I mean a bit better - it's one of those things I can't really explain how it works, just that you should never hand them that back once they give it to you unless they take it. :)

My coworkers and I have multiple stories about former coworkers who have left the military in the last two to three years who took almost a year to find a job, even with four years in the USAF. Nothing wrong with their records, nothing wrong with their OPRs (Officer Performance Reports). Just no jobs. Unless you absolutely hate it on the inside, I'd wait a bit and see how the economy looks.

At the VERY LEAST, she needs to have a job before she leaves and needs to know where and how you're going to live (O3 pay is nothing to sneeze at, and neither are our benefits). Too many people separate and think the world will fall at their feet, and that's just not how it works, especially right now. It's an old myth that no longer applies.

But I'd stay in. Right now this is a cozy place to be for a lot of people, and part of it for direct commissions is indeed job security.

Again, unsolicited advice. :)

rumwynnieRN · Jun 8, 2013

Depends on where you move to. I wish I could you more details because my aunt was in the same situation ~10 years ago (she got out 1 year before 9/11). She said, verbatim, "I'm sick of the Air Force, and they don't pay me enough!" She added she was tired of whiney adults, didn't really care for mental health (she was at the VA for a bit), and went on to work in the nursery.

Numbers wise, she was making substantially more than what she was making in the Air Force, not counting the usual benefits. With the benefits, eh, well, it may have balanced out. I'm sure her deployments helped with her resume, but the big thing would be where you move to. If you're not sure, and this is by no means the best scale, I'd go to the USAJOBS website and look up what the VA pays the nurses in that area (if that VA is hiring). Their pay is usually in the range (average-ish) of what the area may look like, at least that was the case for the city I'm from, and the city I'm in now.

Oh, and definitely everything the PP said. As I said, my aunt was in this position before 9/11, when the job market was much better looking, and we got over Y2K (...sheesh who even remembers that).

carolinapooh, BSN, RN · Jun 8, 2013

Depends on where you move to. I wish I could you more details because my aunt was in the same situation ~10 years ago (she got out 1 year before 9/11). She said, verbatim, "I'm sick of the Air Force, and they don't pay me enough!" She added she was tired of whiney adults, didn't really care for mental health (she was at the VA for a bit), and went on to work in the nursery.
Numbers wise, she was making substantially more than what she was making in the Air Force, not counting the usual benefits. With the benefits, eh, well, it may have balanced out. I'm sure her deployments helped with her resume, but the big thing would be where you move to. If you're not sure, and this is by no means the best scale, I'd go to the USAJOBS website and look up what the VA pays the nurses in that area (if that VA is hiring). Their pay is usually in the range (average-ish) of what the area may look like, at least that was the case for the city I'm from, and the city I'm in now.

Pay ten years ago and pay now are very different. I know of very few non-GS, non-mil nurses in this country working straight time and comparable hours to me who make what I do, and with a third of their pay shielded from taxation. That's not including free medical, freedom from worry about accruing and using sick leave, and not stressing that I could lose my job if I needed even a brief hospitalization and was unable to work. (We all know that happens - it's part of what drove me back to the military in the first place.)

Where I'm from the pay at the VA is much more than what the area is paying, so that doesn't always work. I was actually under the impression that it doesn't, so I'm surprised to hear it's a rule of thumb - literally.

Keep in mind GS RNs get a locality supplement that can sometimes force the salary off the Richter scale. It does here in San Antonio in an almost comical way. (Given the low cost of living here I was shocked to see it.)

OP above - GS RNs (I don't know about the VA) are currently experiencing furloughs and nursing itself is under a hiring freeze.

Ten years ago is very different from now.

rumwynnieRN · Jun 8, 2013

Where I'm from the pay at the VA is much more than what the area is paying, so that doesn't always work. I was actually under the impression that it doesn't, so I'm surprised to hear it's a rule of thumb - literally.

When the VA sent representatives to our nursing school to recruit people for the VALOR program, we were told the pay had to be comparable to the area and to the surrounding hospitals. They definitely weren't the lowest paying hospital, but not the highest. The max they would've paid my dad was less than what he was making at one of the other hospitals in the area (...in relative walking distance).

carolinapooh, BSN, RN · Jun 9, 2013

When the VA sent representatives to our nursing school to recruit people for the VALOR program, we were told the pay had to be comparable to the area and to the surrounding hospitals. They definitely weren't the lowest paying hospital, but not the highest. The max they would've paid my dad was less than what he was making at one of the other hospitals in the area (...in relative walking distance).

Like I said, I was led to believe differently - I wasn't saying I didn't believe you. :) I promise. Before applying at the VA, I had always been led to believe that that was the case (I'm a military brat) - that the government cannot be competitive.

But I also know that the VA where I was contemplating applying as a new grad (right across the street from the hospital I ended up working at - literally a crosswalk away) was paying a whole heck of a lot more than where I ended up (because they told me starting salary, and I know what I ended up making) - I just couldn't sit around and wait for the long hiring process. Plus they didn't really have any openings in any areas that interested me at the time.

The GS system says the same thing. (And I'm a former GS employee, though not as an RN.) But I also know what the GS11 and GS12 RNs make here with their locality supplement (which even to them seems excessive given the local cost of living and what RNs make per hour here) and I know what they state they made at their civilian facilities and what their friends make. (No, I didn't ask. :) We were talking about nursing in general and the furloughs and the economy. But our pay is pretty much public record anyway if you know where to look.) The difference is insane.

Sometimes I wonder where they come up with their numbers myself and how they get by without being consistent. I hear the same thing from the GSs I work with.

rumwynnieRN · Jun 9, 2013

Like I said, I was led to believe differently - I wasn't saying I didn't believe you. :) I promise. Before applying at the VA, I had always been led to believe that that was the case (I'm a military brat) - that the government cannot be competitive.
But I also know that the VA where I was contemplating applying as a new grad (right across the street from the hospital I ended up working at - literally a crosswalk away) was paying a whole heck of a lot more than where I ended up (because they told me starting salary, and I know what I ended up making) - I just couldn't sit around and wait for the long hiring process. Plus they didn't really have any openings in any areas that interested me at the time.
The GS system says the same thing. (And I'm a former GS employee, though not as an RN.) But I also know what the GS11 and GS12 RNs make here with their locality supplement (which even to them seems excessive given the local cost of living and what RNs make per hour here) and I know what they state they made at their civilian facilities and what their friends make. (No, I didn't ask. :) We were talking about nursing in general and the furloughs and the economy. But our pay is pretty much public record anyway if you know where to look.) The difference is insane.
Sometimes I wonder where they come up with their numbers myself and how they get by without being consistent. I hear the same thing from the GSs I work with.

Oh no, I hope I wasn't coming off as offended -_-; Curse the internet sometimes...ah well.

Truthfully, I thought the same thing as you when it came to the government and, well, anything government related, until some stuff happened, and then there's the "We'll pay back your government loans, but just FYI, we own you for like 10 years at least." Then I found out about loan forgiveness =D...now I just need to be hired by a public hospital.

I've heard so many horrible stories about the VA, I didn't want to apply there after nursing school. I've since learned and found that hey, it's not so bad, just, why does their charting system look like DOS or something.

I wondered how they calculate pay for places. Obviously it's not a hard percentage...or maybe it is, I don't know.

That aside, OP, I hope you and your wife find what you're looking for. I don't know how keen your wife is on working for the same boss just as a civilian, or if she wants to jump ship that bad and move somewhere non-military. My suggestion may or may not be appropriate for your situation (you've now seen 2 possibilities with backing for both). The tangent wasn't an advertisement for the VA, but I hope you get some guesstimate of what you need.