I am currently working in the OR and I used to work on the floor. After 3 months of the OR training, I am already sick of the verbal abuse from both surgeons and anesthesiologists.
I am wondering what will be the best job in nursing that...
1. I don't have to be on call
2. I don't have to work nights
3. I will have regular day shift hours
4. I will get Sat and Sun off
5. I don't have to take care of 7 patients and break my back
6. I don't have to stay 2 hours extra every day to chart
7. I will feel that I have accomplished something at the end of the day
8. I will not be yelled at by some doctors or surgeons
I feel like I am in the wrong field. What should I do? Do you feel the same as I do? I am depressed most of the time and I drag my feet to go to work. I want to call in sick all the time.
Specializes in Critical Care, Dialysis, Home Health.
School nursing here does not require a BSN but they pay about the same as a substitute teacher, $60 per day!
My job as case manager in home health is pretty sweet now. It used to suck big time but things are much better now. Weekend call is every 6-7 weekends, weekday call about once a week.
I wouldn't say my job is the easiest job, it has deadlines, and stresses.BUT I am a Resident Care Manager in a LTC facility. I am responsible for all careplanning,and MDS,incident investigations ect.
You have to have excellent assessment skills, critical thinking ability, problem solving skills.
In LTC the reimbursement to the facility is linked through the MDS,so a MDS coordinators have the opportunity to be well compensated,$25.00 and up an hour.With a little experience $30.00+, good benefits, I don't do NOCS,weekends,holidays.I do have to deal with doctors but have established good working relationship, so no problems there.
I work pretty much independently of other nursing staff so I don't have the backbiting stuff. Not hard to break into, take online or in person classes.Apply seems like all facilities are looking, find one you like and go for it!
There are hospital-based 8 -5 nursing positions that do not require nights, weekends or holidays...down side is that they are ususally 'salaried' positions and so the pay starts less than you make now, no shift differential, and you make the same pay even if you have to work overtime. They are usually in Occupational Health (instead of dealing with cranky physicians, you get to deal with cranky employees who use the office as their personal physician's office), Quality, Education, Infection Control (still have to deal with staff and physicians and with the past SARS and now Avian flu spreading around the world, this is a challenging field), Care Management/Discharge Planning, Utilization Review (may have to do call on weekends), Safety, Information Systems. Keep in mind...there is light at the end of the tunnel in dealing with irate physicians...one of JCAHO's new safety goals is dealing with "disruptive" personnel (really do think their focus is on physicians; they just don't spell it out!). I do hope it will help some; even though there are those that are just beyond help...now Administration will have to show JCAHO followup on complaints about these folks.
Yes, school nurses need a Bachelor's degree at a minimum. Here in Massachusetts, things are changing and school nurses have to have a Masters within five years of starting or become certified in School Nursing. I have been working for the past two years as a substitute school nurse while I am finishing my RN to BSN program I have one more class which will end in July. There is an opening at a middle school waiting for me for September. I don't see the need for a Masters degree. That is a awful lot of money to spend for the salary. It would take years to recoup, but I'll figure it out later!
To address the original message, the hours are fabulous. There is a huge amount of paperwork that can tack on time each day, but most of the nurses get out about 15 minutes after the last bus rolls out! The pay is not good, but you are only working about 180 days a year. The benefit of being home in the afternoons, nights, weekends, and holidays far outweights the income. I am going to give it a try full time and decide if this is what I want. I no longer have the patience for obnoxious doctors. I think I am ready to tackle the obnoxious adolescent!!!
pre surgical testing is a great job. we see the patients, and clear the charts for the next days surgery. We make sure all lab values, ekg and cxr are within our anesthesia guidelines, all patients who need medical clearance, have them and all charts are ready to go
I don't think you can use the words "easy job" and "nursing" in the same sentence. BUT, having worked in high-stress positions for 25+ years, the job I have now (Education Coordinator) is a comparative breeze. Mostly because NO ONE REPORTS TO ME! No call, work Mon - Fri, no holidays (unless I want to work them), no doctors to deal with, no schedules to make out, no call-outs to cover. I do come in on the evening and night shifts occassionaly, but I can adjust my hours around those times, so I don't get exhausted. The positions is fairly creative, I do lots of on-line research to put inservice programs together, and have a lot of influence on staff -without being responsible for their actions (or inaction). I never thought I would enjoy teaching, I HATED helping my 4 kids with homework, but I really love this job!
Ambulatory surgery pre-op is an excellent job. I did it PRN (ended up with 40 hrs/week because I wanted to). Being in an ambulatory center, all patients are pre-screened and you have relatively healthy adults having elective surgeries. Dealt some with the surgeons, not too bad. The staff had a much better attitude because no one felt put upon since we didn't work weekends, nothing after 7 pm, and we had Thanksgiving (2days), Christmas (2 days), New Years (2 days), July 4, Labor and Memorial days too. We were also thanked with a gift quarterly if we were mentioned in a positive light in a patient survey during that quarter. We were often brought lunch or given gift certificates for doing something (like all the office staff called in for snow, all the nurses made it in) So the nurses all got $25 to a local store. Not to mention in surgery, you wear their scrubs and don't have to take all those germs home with you. Loved that too.
I'm pretty sure you have to have a BSN for research.
No, you don't need a BSN.
Research is a wide-open and growing field. I have worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator for 19 years. The trend when I started was to hire nurses with solid skills and experience. Now the cost of hiring an RN is almost prohibitive for an individual doctor. In New York where I live, salaries are very high. The trend is to hire Administrative Coordinators to handle the paperwork and to hire an individual with a license for the clinical assessments and tasks. Each individual doctor or research office will have slightly differing needs depending on the nature of their research. The educational degree really doesn't matter. It's all about getting the job done legally and safely and being able to afford it.
The nature of the research will also dictate the nature of the job. If you see a job advertised and they indicate that they are willing to train you, jump at the chance to get the experience. There are many, many research jobs with no weekends, no holidays, and charting is on your own terms. There is certification available for research coordinators and many who start as coordinators later change to work in private industry.
I agree with the physician's office idea. I've worked on the floor, in the ER, agency, and an Urgent Care facility. The urgenct care center was part of a private group of md's offices. I worked full time days, no weekends, no holidays, it was an urgent care so sometimes we would see the occasional chest pain and abdominal pain that needed ivs and such, but for the most part it was sports injuries, sore throats, and aches and pains, but the chest pains and abd pains helped to keep your skills up. I agree the pay wasn't the best, but if you find a facility in need and you have good experience you can negotiate fairly well, it won't be hospital pay, but you're not working holidays and weekends either.
Specializes in primary care, pediatrics, OB/GYN, NICU.
Two ideas - I have friends who work at an eye surgery center (cataracts, Lasix etc..) they work M-F no weekends and are paid hospital wages. They tell me the docs are nice. I work in an urgent care clinic, more like a ER with just the basics... I don't work more than one Sat a month and I choose to work 10-7. And the doctors are nice to work with because they aren't all call all the time either!
I had to chuckle at your list of requirements, but I would agree that working in a clinic, home care or private nursing would be the most likely to fill all those ideals. I have always wanted to work in our hospital's day procedures area, where they do day surgeries like carpal tunnel, nerve decompressions, liposuction, mole excisions etc. They also do endoscopy and gastroscopy on the other side of the hall and nurses work both sides. Its days Mon-Fri and no weekends or holidays. But the nurses have to have a lot of seniority to get a position there.
I am working on my OR course right now, about to go into lab/clinical and preceptorship, I really hope it's not bad here, but can always hope~!!!!
Are there other hospitals in your area? There are 5 hospitals in my area and as a nursing instructor took students to all of them. You can not believe the night and day difference in the Doctor attitudes at different facilities. One hospital let drs behave in any psychotic way they wanted, I finally refused to go there, whereas other hospitals had great mutual respect between drs and nurses.
Outpatient surgery is a great bet with your experience. I worked at an eye surgery place that was awesome and everyone was very nice. Just check out the drs and ask around. I also agree with the post about public health nursing, the pay isnt as good as the hospital but usually the benefits are better.
dpbrown523
19 Posts
School nursing here does not require a BSN but they pay about the same as a substitute teacher, $60 per day!
My job as case manager in home health is pretty sweet now. It used to suck big time but things are much better now. Weekend call is every 6-7 weekends, weekday call about once a week.