listener

Just for context if it helps, here are the differentials for Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Note: I believe that they haven't gone up in over a decade!! When you factor in inflation, night and evening workers are not nearly being compensated as well as they once were, not at least at BJH: Diff Evening: $2.40 (5pm - 11pm) Diff Night: $2.90 (11pm - 7am) Diff Weekend: $2.40 (11pm Fri - 7am Mon) (Yes, for a weekend evening, the total differential would be $4.80, and night $5.30)

My suggestions include the following: Try to schedule all you week's shifts in a row (3?) and then do nothing but eat, sleep and work for those 3 shifts. Have pre-cooked (frozen?) meals all ready at home, don't have a dog or a BF (or a child!) to take care of when you get home. Drive home with sunglasses on! Pull the blinds in your kitchen and eat dinner, not breakfast, before you go to sleep. Act like it's nighttime, b/c for your body it IS nighttime! I have a glass of wine - a small one. I watch a video while I eat and turn my phone off. When you get up in the afternoon, eat breakfast! All of that is easier said than done, but it's what I do and works fairly well. I don't have a life beyond work for those 3 days/nights. Hey, are your night differentials worth the misery? Please post on my thread your numbers! https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/2017-hourly-differentials-1106678.html

Please follow format if you can, then add comments. Thank you! Location: St. Louis, MO Facility: Large Teaching Hospital Role: Staff-Nurse Evenings: $2.40 (Defined as 5pm-11pm) Nights: $2.90 (Defined as 11pm-7am) Weekends: $2.40 (Defined as Fri 11pm thru Mon 7am) Charge: 5% of base hourly wage Comments: I believe that our differentials have not changed in more than 10 years. Due simply to inflation, that means that in real money terms, these "incentives" at my hospital have really lost the ability to incentivize nurses to work nights and weekends.

Yes, I'm sure they do have good motivations and probably are able to make use of some of the info. Still, there were a fair number of multiple choice questions that were so vague or simply not well-written, that I felt the answers they received could be meaningless or misleading. Whatever, I was happy to help. I was just wondering if anyone actually did anything with these testamonial letters. Thx!

After passing NCLEX, I received a NCSBN survey in the mail "on the practice of newly licensed RNs". It was long and tedious, and a lot of the questions seemed a little poorly or generically worded such that it was difficult to imagine what real use they could gain from the results, but I filled it out anyway and mailed it in. Now I've received a thank you letter in the mail, along with two form letters that are presumably for me to send to my state BON and to my employer (the NCSBN doesn't explain anything about them in the thank you). One starts "To Whom it May Concern: This is to certify that _________ participated..." etc. The other just changes "To Whom..." to "Dear _______ Board of Nursing...". They basically are testimonials to your participation in the survey. So... well? Should I really fill in the blanks and mail one into the BON and give the other to my boss? She and I can have a laugh over it, but is this something that I ought to send to the BON? Can't hurt, I suppose. Can it help in any sense? It all seems a little silly. What do you think?

Old thread, but timeless issue. I worked at BJC (Barnes-Jewish Hospital) for several years but now work for SSM (DePaul). They both have wonderful things going for each of them. But my comment is regarding their defined contribution savings plans. BJC has a 401k and SSM has a 403b. The number names don't really matter, but the investment program management and investment choices are huge issues. I've discovered since leaving BJC what a miserable investment program SSM has. For anyone who follows investing, and indexing in particular, SSM's 403b which is run by Great Western Insurance, is loaded up with high expense ratio funds. Moreover, they have just one index fund, which tracks the S&P 500 but it has an expense ratio like an actively managed fund. It's horrible and SSM should be embarassed. BJC on the other hand has chosen to have Vanguard administer its 401k plan. It largely has very low expense ratio funds including many index funds, and it also has some actively managed funds for people who feel they have to go with these types of investments. BJC also gives access to a few DFA funds, which for those investors who really know indexing, is a very good plus. Anyhow, without trying to get into many specifics, the bottom line is that the savings plans offered by BJC and SSM differ like night and day, and SSM has a dog of a savings plan which will cost you real money in the long run. I do love working at SSM, but my one true regret is that I have such a lousy savings plan. As it is, anyone working at SSM would be wise to contribute only up to the matching % that SSM matches, and then no more. After that, open up an IRA or a Roth IRA somewhere like Vanguard, or Fidelity, or Schwab... whatever, and contribute to that.

I will graduate this month (Dec, 2010) from STLCC and will start in January at SSM/DePaul @ $20.00/hr.

Check out these 2 pages. I think you might find the answers there. If not, maybe search out the Illinois state BON webpage. http://www.pr.mo.gov/nursing-nlc.asp https://www.ncsbn.org/nlc.htm Good luck!

I'm still a nrsg student but i've been a tech on an acute care gen med floor for 2 years. I think if you subtract the the surgery patients from med-surg, that should give you a pretty good idea of what you have. We see lot's of patients with renal failure, liver failure, patients with complicated medical problems that have yet to be sorted out, patients often with multiple problems including DM, HTN, CHF, pancreatitis... difficult things like stevens-johnson syndrome... it's never a dull moment and you'll have ample opportunity to learn and won't be bored. Hope this is helpful. Also, general medicine at a teaching hospital might be more challenging and varied than at some other hospitals. Good luck!

That's great to hear, about the fellowships for ADN's - I was wrong. Can you say anything more about them? What facilities? What kind of fellowships? Are these places that these students were already working at during school? Thanks.

Gee... I'm in my 3rd semester at Forest Park (1 to go!) but they've been talking to us about applying for jobs since the beginning. They've gotten us to finish resumes already and they've emphasized the usefulness of working prn as techs and getting into summer internships, etc. for helping us develop relationships with local hospitals and getting employed as nurses when we graduate. Moreover, it's been made fairly clear to me that we should be well into the grad. nurse job search before we graduate. So, I'd get moving! As far as fellowship programs go... I gather that they often require one to be graduating from a BSN program (perhaps you are) and often are even more selective, meaning not all graduate nurses accepted to their facilities are admitted into fellowship programs. Regarding doing a fellowship program "even as a new RN", well, there are fellowship programs specifically for new grads. They also exist at some facilities for nurses already working as RN's, but it should be fairly obvious once you look into the specific program. Ok, that's all I know, good luck to you.

Way to go - Congratulations!!!

There sure is at BJH! I was in a clinicals group in Fall '09 which had a presentation from BJH human resources and they said as much. I can't remember the amount, but I think the BSN premium over ADN was 25 or 50 cents/hour. Ooops! I posted the above thinking I was responding to a recent post... wrong! Equal pay was probably the case then, but not now. Sorry BeccaznRN!

I'm reacting to various posts I've seen emphasizing nursing's perspective (vs. medicine's) and how the advanced degrees (NP, DNP) further learning and the science of the nursing perspective. I however, with total respect and appreciation for the nursing approach to patient care and healthcare in general, have not recognized any advancement of "nursing" per se in the work NP's do, I see their work and skills as a "medical" extension to their responsibilities. DNPs/NPs are not identifying more advanced nursing diagnoses. They are not implementing more sophisticated nursing interventions. They are performing skills that are generally "medical". This is NOT a criticism whatsoever! The NP's I've worked with are awesome and I aspire to their talents! I am firmly planted in the camp that would hope there would be much more clinical training in the DNP curriculums I've read about so far, even in the NP programs. And I do not think much of the DNP coursework that seems to exist primarily to justify or emphasize the "nursing" nature of the DNP degree when it really belongs in different programs: public health administration, PhD, MBA... etc.

A NP, or Nurse Practitioner = A Nurse that practices a little medicine. No? It's not simply a nurse that practices a little more nursing than a nurse, is it?

What is your logic for not working for a hospital? It would be a much better experience for you educationally as well as for getting a job once you graduate. BJH is constantly looking for NS students to hire as student nurse techs, SNTs. And they are willing to hire you parttime (min 32 hours / 2 week pay period) or even PRN. If you're trying to save time, maximize your use of your time by applying to work at a hospital, not a nursing home. Unless, of course, your passion is really for geriatrics or that environment. Even then, I could still make a pretty good argument for going the SNT route for now. Anyhow, contact human resources at BJH and ask to talk to a nurse recruiter about shadowing a tech on a ---- floor. You fill in the blank for where you'd like to work, or just say a med-surg floor or general medicine floor. But come across as being very interested/willing to work whereever they have a need. That's my suggestion!

Yeah, I'm at Forest Park and it's been 48 for the last year or so. Let's see, that makes: 60 + 2(40) + 2(48) = 236 students per year Wow, that's a lot of new nurses every year! Actually, I'm not sure how many are in the graduating classes each year. I do know that at Forest Park student nurses fall out of the program for various reasons, and people also come back into the program. Our second semester class starting this Fall is picking up several students to bring us back to 48. At least one of our "new" second semester students had previously taken off a semester due to pregnancy.

Starting hourly wage for a PCT at BJH is about $9.80, not including difs. Of course the experience is priceless. :nuke:

Ditto!

I agree with your comments on your A&P teacher, a dedicated and challenging professor, although I understand he is a Dr. of Chiropractic. He has also been a professor of anatomy at Logan College of Chiropractic.

ha! 3 hours a day for half the school year!! i think you're ready :) Good luck!

In a word, "Yes!", go to the hospital's human resources dept. Regardless of who you speak with first, security guard, receptionist, whatever, the question/statement is "I'd like to find out about talking to the nurse recruiter." That's it. Oh yeah, be prepared! You might actually get through to them that moment, or you might get to someone else. So, know what being a PCT is about. There's more than enough info simply in this forum to get a good understanding of what a PCT does, so if you're not sure, start reading. The second question/statement is "I'd like to shadow a PCT in your xyz dept/floor." Even better, if you've already been taking NS prereqs, you've undoubtably had classmates who already are techs. Before even visiting the hospital just go straight to some of these people and if they respect you they probably will say "Sure, I'd be glad to let you shadow me sometime. Let me talk to my manager." That should do it. Btw, definitely have your info already in the online system, so you can tell the nurse recruiter that it's there. Moreover, be sure that the info you've put in there has been well-written! No typos!, etc, etc. Ok, that's it.

I'm confused - Did you still make it through Barnes' ASN program? What program will you be joining at U of M?