New Grad working per diem question

[Mantibob]

i will be a new grad in may! i will be living in salt lake city when i pass the boards. pay is not all that hot in utah. question - what if i worked per diem, or casual or whatever they call it, in the san francisco bay area every other week? i could work 4 12s every other week and make a lot more. the flight is cheap and i have relatives/friends i could stay with. i could do this in sacramento also, (where i am from originally), but i want to be near the ocean. ideally i would want to be in the monterey bay area but guessing it would be harder to find a position there.

anyway, the real question is - would any hospital hire a new grad under these circumstances or do they require you to be local permanent hire when you are fresh out of school? i look forward to your responses and thank you in advance.

[RN4NICU, LPN, LVN]

I cannot imagine a hospital hiring a new grad as a per diem. New grads are not prepared to just hit the ground running (sometimes they have to, but that does not mean it is right) - they require extensive orientations. I would be worried if a facility did not require this. It means that they do not care about your license or their patients. Be kind to yourself and protect your license once you earn it. Get a year of experience before considering per diem. Any reputable facility will require that you do so anyway, but that is for your protection as well as their own.

[suzanne4, RN]

I answered your other post, and definitely agree with the above. Do not try to hurt your license because you want more money right away. Definitely not the way to begin your career. You need experience behind you....You will be learning new things on a daily basis.............protect yourself as well as your patients.

And even though working 4 twelves in a row sounds like a peice of cake, it can be quite heavy.. Then you would need time off from that before going back to your regular job. You are just setting yourself up for failure. You will also have quite a bit of homework that you will be doing for your first position, there is so much to learn..................

Start wroking and then see how you feel after three months or so, you will see that we are quite right.

[SmilingBluEyes]

I have to agree with the others: you are being a bit unrealistic. LEARN first......work perdiem later. Much is expected of perdiem nurses, much more than most new grads can possibly deliver. Do yourself a favor and give it one or two years before trying this. I wish you well in your new career. PLEASE be good to yourself; no one else will look out for you but you.