New Job, New Unit BUT Same Pay BUT Signing Bonus...

[imanedrn]

LOOOONG!

I LIKE my current position. I horribly DISLIKE my unit, however: med/tele and infectious disease. The I.D. part is the worst because we end up with all the nursing home patients (they're immediately put on special contact isolation as a precaution), so that necessarily means incontinence, AMS, the whole nine yards. Not to mention, I'm just getting tired of having the majority of my patients being over the age of 60. Although I've gotten really good at surviving my days (time management is great!), I'm worried about becoming one of those NG burn out statistics if I stick around. Specific to my unit, I've heard numerous stories about nurses putting in for transfers to other units and being flat-out refused with no good reason to boot. The word is that our manager refuses the transfers because our unit is SO hard to staff. (Once nurses find out the truth, they run for the hills! Even those who are floated to our unit are SO thankful they don't work there!)

So... I've been offered a position at a competing hospital. It's med/surg/tele AND ortho. I was also offered a "special" new position that's 9a-9p (which is cool cuz I'm NOT a morning person and wake up MUCH better to the sun than the dark! -- though getting out so late MIGHT suck...). I would come in 2 hrs after the "normal" shifts start and take over patients. In the evening, during the 7-9p hours, I would essentially be doing float help. The job would be Mon-Wed because they get most of their surgical pts on Mon & Tue, they spend a few days for recovery, then are d/c'd by Friday (usually). So my role would be to work primarily with these patients, esp. doing admits and discharges.

The interim director is familiar with the hospital I currently work at and our computer system (which is AMAZING!), and she said theirs isn't quite as good as ours. She said the admits can take up to an hour to do, but I have an EXTENSIVE computer background (that's my SMALLEST learning curve), so she suggested that part might not be too tough for me.

All that being said... I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay in med/surg, but with the thought of getting away from I.D. AND having a "special" position, it sounds more appealing!

So here's the catch. The pay is the same. Actually, I recently got a performance/cost of living rause, so it'd be about $1/hr less. Also, I wouldn't be required to work weekends (the other nurses are expected to work at least every other weekend). I currently work every Sunday, so I'd lose that extra bit of pay also. The catch is the signing bonus. If I sign for 2 yrs, I get $1000 after 90 days, $1000 after 1 year, and $2000 after the 2 yrs ends. The cool part is that this contract extends to ALL their hospitals and ALL positions. So, if I want to move to a different hospital or different position, I'm not screwed in the contract. That's a BIG plus.

So... After working with these I.D./nursing home patients for 7 months, I've started thinking I would wait out my 1 year, and then look around. I want to be loyal to my employer. On the other hand, it's hard to pass up a good opportunity!

At this point, I'm just thinking this through in written words. When my husband gets home, I'll talk to him and see if he thinks it's worth it. (We have to consider the financial implications together.) Oh, and, although I don't know everything about their health insurance plan, it sounds about the same as what I have now. There are 3 options. With one of them, you pay NOTHING per pay period, which is the type of plan I have now, and I love it. Their plan is through a different company, though, so I don't know if all the other bits would be worth it. I'd have to review that in more detail...

Ok, so after all this, I have ANOTHER interview next week with a hospital that's a sister to the one I got the offer from today. The only difference is that it's in peds -- an area I would love to break into! HOWEVER, if the majority of my pts at this other job are NOT nursing home folks, then I think I would love it! Also, having the M/S background, I know I can get a job ANYWHERE, which is not necessarily true of peds. ALSO, I've heard rumors (from a few friends who work for this hospital system) that they've recently revamped the peds unit (gone through a new director, etc.), so they're willing to hire just about anyone now. Not sure if that's a good thing. Fortunately, the M/S job is willing to give me plenty of time (I told them I'd like to finish out my final schedule, assuming the hospital wants me there, which amounts to about 5 weeks, and they're willing to let me.) This would also give me plenty of time to think about the peds job. Depending on what my husband thinks of the M/S job, he flat out told me that he would support my move to the peds job even if the pay is the same (or even less!), since it'd give me the opportunity to break into peds. He did NOT say the same about the M/S job because I thought they'd offer me more. So... I'm just waiting for him to get home now.

So... I don't even know what I'm looking for at this point. Your thoughts? Anyone been through a similar situation? What do you think of being able to move to a "better" job during my 1st year of nursing for the sake of LOTS more experience. (I forgot to mention that I spend most of my day passing / hanging meds, while I have gotten very little procedural experience simply d/t the patient population. On the other hand, I've gotten VERY good at IVs!)

Thanks for any responses -- esp. if you managed to read this whole long thing!

[november17, ASN, RN]

If it is med/surg/ortho I'd be willing to bet that you'll get slammed with admits and discharges everyday. Given the hours they're offering, that's my guess.

If you're one of those people (like me) that likes taking care of fresh post-ops and doing d/c education, then go for it!

[imanedrn]

If it is med/surg/ortho I'd be willing to bet that you'll get slammed with admits and discharges everyday. Given the hours they're offering, that's my guess.

If you're one of those people (like me) that likes taking care of fresh post-ops and doing d/c education, then go for it!

Although I know nothing about their charting system(s), I don't mind getting slammed. I've learned to manage my time well, and I like the challenge. (I just hope their system is user-friendly!)

One of the reasons I'm SO interested in this job is because I'll finally get exposure to surgical patients. At this point, I've had less than I could count on 2 hands (maybe even 1)! We only keep the ones who are currently infected with something. Otherwise, they stay on the surgical unit, and I never see them -- hence no experience with them either!