dlinetackle

Hello Everyone, I have a slight dilemma regarding finding acceptable clinical rotations for my NP Program. I'm currently working in a very remote location, think small island, with limited locations for clinical support. There are currently only two hospitals on this island and my current program requires 750 clinical hours mixed among ED, ICU, Inpatient Hospital. The issue I'm running into is the hospital that I'm affiliated with and currently work at has previously stated I could do all my clinicals there. Now, out of the blue, they have stated that in order to be allowed to do clinicals at their hospital with their physicians or NPs they want me to sign a 2-year commitment requiring that I work for them. I could understand if they were offering to repay 100% of tuition or give any other financial support. But they are currently only wanting to give clinical hours. Now, I could potentially see how if they were developing a new program or if I was the very first NP student. But that is not the case, they have 5 previous NPs who have done all their clinicals within this hospital and were in the same program as me. But they didn't require any of them to sign a contract. As for the other hospital it's almost impossible to get any clinical location or support within their system. They are government run and takes months and months and months to get anything approved regarding clinical support. So, I don't see this as an option. So, what do you all think about this situation? Personally, I find it distasteful to even spend money for clinicals. We, as nurses, are asked to precept numerous student nurses annually without any extra compensation or even being asked. I mentioned that I think it's slightly unethical to require a contract for the privilege of doing clinicals and they mentioned I could purchase clinical hours at the rate of 75$ an hour. Which is absolutely absurd.

I'm currently on assignment with AMN and I thought I would give an honest description of my experience. While first considering travel nursing I researched a little bit, took a look at PPR, Fastaff, AMN, Travelcorp, among other smaller agencies. I decided on AMN, in a large part due to a good friend who was on assignment with them, and I have mixed reviews. My recruiter, while very nice, doesn't necessarily have my best interests at heart. I come from an ICU, PCU background and her first suggestion was that I take a contract in long term care just to get my feet wet in travel nursing. While I had limited experience with traveling, I felt as though this was a bad decision. So after declining, what seemed like tons of suggestions, I decided on a little contract in the northeast. So, someone mentioned earlier about the compartmentalization of their tasks. You have an individual for every department you will have to interact with. So there's a different person for payroll issues, compliance, credentialing, contracts. Which seems like a novel idea, but in practice it is somewhat a disaster. In my experience, no one really understands who responsibility it whose. I get bounced around from one department to another trying to fix a relatively minor issue. More importantly, while my recruiter has stayed the same, basically every other person has changed multiple times. I think I'm on my 5th or 6th credentialist for the next contract. And each time they change the new credentialist keeps trying to get me to submit the same paperwork I've already submitted. So, it's time consuming and quite frustrating. The recruiter will also tend to promise things that they may not be able to deliver upon. Such as the quoted living accommodations are quite different that reality. So all in all when I first started Travel Nursing I didn't exactly know how this all works out, but I've had an epiphany quite recently. One that I'm willing to share: Realize that you, as a nurse, are the commodity. It is your skills that the hospital is desperate for. Not the recruiters, not the agencies, but the nurses. So keep an open mind when negotiating contracts, pay, and benefits. The ball is really in our court, realize what you're willing to work for and don't work for anything less.