IndigoCarmine

It sounds like you've got three different problems, here: 1. they offered you a weekend option. Hospitals that offer "Weekend Option" do so to make sure their weekends are guaranteed covered. It usually means you work TWO 12h shifts a week - either F & S night or S & Su dayshift, period. As a full-time job it means more cash but decreased benefits and very little vacation time but hey, you already have five days off, right? As a traveller it means you do this for the entire length of your contract. You told them you didn't want that, so they offered you a 36h contract. THREE shifts a week. And now you have them. Problem is, they aren't the shifts you want. 2- Many hospitals require working every other weekend from all their staff and travelers and agency nurses. Nothing weird, there, but seriously annoying if you work 36h a week. Seems they've got you working every weekend. Technically, yes, this IS very obnoxious BUT they haven't actually done anything wrong. Are they taking advantage of you? Absolutely. Do travel nurses get taken advantage of by their sites? Yes. But travel nurses are brought in to fill in the scheduling gaps. Where are the biggest gaps often found? Weekends. Problem is, they're punishing you for not taking their original offer. They clearly needed someone to work weekends, attempted to make it appealing with the Weekend Option, and are just making you work weekends 36h a week instead of 24. It's really mean. 3. You want to renegotiate a contract already in progress. This is sort of like wanting your long locks back after you didn't like the haircut. Once the contact is signed, unless something truly egregious happens, you're stuck. I think it was a good call (and more than fair) of you to try and trade Christmas weekend off for 12 weeks of weekend enslavement. I'm sorry they didn't go for it, but sadly Travelers are meant for coverage and a unit's allegiance will always be to give house staff time off. Just know that in the future you can certainly request specific days off in a travel contract. Once signed, they HAVE to give you those days off no matter what, the same way you've been cornered into working Christmas by not asking for it off in advance. Also, it's just dumb luck that this year Christmas is a weekend. But believe me, if it wasn't, they'd have stuck you on it anyway. THEN they would have gone back to scheduling you every weekend, because they can and that's where they need you. If it's really, really killing you can break the contract and risk financial retribution from your company but I do not suggest this: that's A LOT of money to pay back. Honestly I think the best thing to do it just ride it out, have an awesome holiday with your family starting December 26th and wow that unit with your confidence and flexibility and ease. It will pay off. You do have to prove yourself to get rewarded. They don't know how awesome you are! So show 'em and maybe they'll lay off you for a bit and give you a better schedule. Travel nursing requires flexibility, thick skin, patience and the ability to withstand being low man on the totem pole in exchange for more money and an easy getaway. I'm not saying it's good that it does, I'm just saying that it does. Don't let this sour you on travel nursing. It's an awesome way to broaden your skills and meet cool people and not worry so much about unit politics. Use this as a learning experience. You will negotiate a better contract next time. Go show those folks how great you are!

Ummm..."per diem travel job" means just that. A per diem position, not a full-time one. Moving cross country for a oer diem job seems sort of crazy...nothing personal, but I don't understand what you were expecting...

I just wrapped up two years in NYC with Aya (formerly Access Nurses, NOT Axis, as someone else posted. Do some research.) and honestly I had no major problems. With each contract I signed my recruiter (who was lovely, and always available by phone or email) made sure to snag me more money. The company is smaller than others so definitely had fewer jobs overall than an agency like AM, but since I never left NYC this was not an issue. Talking to other travelers on my unit who worked with ther companies I was making comparable money, so I know I wasn't getting shafted that way. Once they suddenly changed payroll companies so my direct deposit went in two days later, but since I got paid weekly instead of biweekly this wasn't a big deal. Their health insurance package wasn't great, so I skipped it. But I had a fine experience with them and would certainly use them again.

"One would suggest you haven't been following things closely as you tought then, for the annoucement did mention nurses, and was covered by local news media at the time." One would suggest that your tone is rather rude. I thanked the poster for the article. My deepest sincerest apologies for not knowing about whatever was "covered by local news media". I don't have a tv and do most of my radio listening on the weekend. The internet is my main news source and that article didn't come up in my search. Have a terrific day.

Thanks for that! All the other pieces I read were vague. Administration, clinic jobs and hiring freezes were the focus. No mention of nurses (not that all those cuts wouldn't affect nurses anyway, because of course they would!)

Where I work, if the pts MD is one of the less harried ones and the conditions are favorable (meaning that the unit isn't packed to the rafters...betcha thought I meant the PATIENT'S conditions! Ha! I wish.) then they might place a second cervadil for an additional 12 hours. Or, weirdly, leave the original cervadil in place for an additional 12 hours. Depends on the doctor. Usually, though, it's 12 hours on cervadil, an hour's rest, followed by pit.

I've found myself in an annoying pickle over the last couple of years: I work at one of the few NYC L&D units that don't require AWHONN's Advanced FHM course. I hate working there and need to move on, but essentially can't without that dang certification. Trouble is, there aren't any courses. It's insane. You're required to have this thing yet nobody offers it. It's an all-day course and the closest it's offered is hours away. A friend of mine resorted to driving to Syracuse last year-- mid week!-- and staying two nights. Crazy. One major hospital system here requires passing the NCC EFM exam, which is really quite expensive. Annoying, too, because seemingly no one outside New York City seems to want it. Recently AWHONN added an online EFM exam. Well, it's about time! The online EFM Post Test = 24.5 contact hours. By comparison, their Advanced Fetal Monitoring = 12 contact hours. One would think this would indicate that the exam is "worth" more than the actual certification, but I'm wondering whether or not the hospitals are even aware of the existence of this exam and if they are, whether they deem it valuable. Would they accept a passing score on the test as a substitute for attending the Advanced course? I'm curious whether anyone out there has taken the course. Is it timed? Is there a "certificate" that can be printed at the conclusion so one might put it in their file at their job? Anyone taken this exam yet?

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T7M-4C4FNKD-S0&_user=9052571&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F1990&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1258427391&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000110488&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=9052571&md5=90420ae93ffe76dcff166b18169b3297

Actually, flu vaccines aren't on the NVIP list. I don't really fear the standard flu vaccine, either. But the swine flu vaccine gives me the willies.

I think "paranoia" is a harsh word. For me, my issue is a lack of responsibility and a lack of liability. I don't like the idea of getting any shot or med and having no recourse if something goes terribly wrong. I'll admit that considering the massive number of people who for the swine flu vaccine in '76, very few people developed Guillain-Barre, and even fewer still died. But Jeez, I sure don't want to be one of those few! Who would? The fact is more people died from that freakin' shot than died from that strain of flu that year. There's no doubt in my mind that habing healthcare workers get the flu vaccine is to set in motion the plan to vaccinate the whole country. I'm not saying the government is trying to kill us all, I'm only saying that flu vaccines are tricky at best and there is no good reason to believe that the new swine flu vaccine will be any different. The manditory flu shot for healthcare workers in NYS is NOT a law yet, but the wheels are in motion, for certain. It's an "emergency regulation" set to expire November 11th. It cannot become a law without a public forum, for which, no surprise, no date has been set for.

The hospitals themselves don't pay you back, but NLRP absolutely will allow for some of your federal loan money for nursing school to be repaid if you work at an HHC hospital. I think it's one year of partial payback for each year worked and you can apply for two years. You should go check. It's a lot of paperwork and hassle, but totally worth it.. You WILL need your original promissory notes and the loans need to NOT be consolidated with other school loans. No notes, no payback. Consolidation? No payback. (that happened to me. It sucked.)

The problem is if healthcare workers are mandated by the state for flu vaccines, it sets the stage for the swine-flu vaccine to be required as well. A rush-job if ever there was one. Not a lot of testing. Not a lot of confidence. No liability on the part of the manufacturers thanks to the PREP Act of '06. Next thing you know, it'll be mandated for the whole population. THAT'S the problem. And I'm not even one of those conspiracy-theory-types!

Holy Cow, omeconium! WHAT a nightmare! So glad you persevered and got what you wanted. WIN!

I work three 12hr night shifts a week as a travel nurse (1930-0800) and I wouldn't have it any other way, no sir! As a traveler I'm discouraged form working any holidays (imagine that!) but back in my staff days Thanksgiving, Easter and Jewish holidays were a total crapshoot while Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and NYE and NYD were rotated yearly as a disastrous three-shift-holiday-destroying run. In other words, if it was your turn to work Christmas you worked 12/24,25,26 and if it was your turn to work NY you worked 12/31,1 & 2. LAME! One of the biggest reasons I left my staff job was how we handled holidays.

at my last job we a qs system for central monitoring but had all paper charting (pita!) so we had a labor flowsheet for q30" efm/toco for all laboring pts: pit, no pit, cervadil, cytotec, epidurals, whatever, and progress notes for q1' assessments (in longhand! kill me!). during "active" labor the flowsheet stayed the same but longhand notes were expected q30". pushing was q5" so the flowsheet would be abandoned in favor of one longhand progress note q15" with q5" updates in between whereyou hoped like hell nothing of particular interest happened because if all was well you could write "pt continues to push w/ctx. status unchanged." interventions (ise's, epis, cervical block) would have to be charted w/exact times. now i work someplace with qs charting. annoyingly, we chart q15" on all "high risk" labor pts, which according to our policy manual includes anyone -on pitocin or -with an epidural which is pretty much everyone. oddly, when a cervadil is placed for a straightforward induction without an underlying issue we only monitor them for two hours then they are free to have intermittent monitoring q2' for 20". i think it's totally nuts to chart q15 on a 2cm pit pt and barely at all on an unmonitored cervadil pt, but hey: i don't make the rules. when it comes time for pushing we're supposed to "chart" q5" but of course this is not possible when you're holding a leg or trying to focus on your pt. i stick to my old q15" full assessment just like at my last job then hit the "mark" button q5" and chart "nurse & provider @bedside" on as many of those marks as i can in those moments. i avoid back-charting at all costs; not easy because so many of our bedside computers don't work. when i'm pushing in a room where the computer doesn't work i write an initial "pt given pushing instructions, md so-and-so @perenium, pt pushing w/each ctx. nurse @bedside. qs system unavailable in room for charting. please see delivery note for details." poof. push the mark butten q5" to prove i'm in the room and that's it. if it seems like we're going to be pushing forever and a day (say, more than an hour) i excuse myself to a working computer to reiterate that the one in the room doesn't work.

Ha! We had a sort of strappy-poncho-snugli thing on our PP unit, too! Held about newborns!

PS: that rate is too low an hourly for NYC agency work. Ultracare and Specialty both pay more like $42, but I don't know whether they do extended contracts. That's their per diem rate. If that quote was for outside the city, then it's really quite good.

Hi, you can absolutely receive a housing stipend (or housing) within your home state. I think the issue you ran into with White Glove is that it's not really a travel nursing agency. It handles jobs local to the New York area. There are many travel nursing agencies mentioned in this forum. Actually, none of them are based in NY that I know of. I live in NY state, travel to NYC to work and work for an agency based in California. Hope that helps, IC

Oooooh! This is SO not the case! Please go do some research on this. Or even just a Google search. Hospitals with religious affiliations (and their staff) would not be affected at all.

Well, I don't work in med-surg, (I work in L&D as a traveller ) but WOW would I NOT leave a permanent position right now. Stuff is so competaitive right now I'm not certain that an increase in certifications can offset two years of experience. I work with several travelers with 10 years experience having no luck getting jobs because there simply aren't any! We're all hoping things pick-up in the coming months. Honestly I'd wait.

Congrats on the job! I went into PP/nursery after graduating because L&D wasn't hiring at the time. When an opening poped up 4 months later, I transferred. I DO regret not having med-surg training because so many L&D patients have other health issues and I have no intention of staying in L&D forever. My sincere advice to you is to take a critical care course if they off it to you in the hospital. You'll be a more well-rounded nurse for it!

I'm reeeeeeeaaaalllly surprised that cytotec is still so widespread and doubly surprised that it's used so often in smaller hospitals without an OB on the premises. My current job (6000+ deliveries/year, teaching hospital, understaffed of course!) does not use cytotec except in IUFDs or non-viable inductions. Even though we are frequently DESPERATE for an open labor room we leave cervadil in for up to 24 hours. Our inductions go very slowly, but at least we're comfortable in the knowledge that is a woman hyperstims we can take the cervadil OUT! Other than that, they get pit. We never do mechanical foleys either. It's cervadil, pit or nothing. My last job placed 25mcg cytotec PV once and then 25mcg more q4 (or was it 6?8?). I think we topped out at 3 placements. So I'll answer for THAT job! How many births do you do per year or per month? 3000 How many OB/gyns do you have on staff? 1 attending, four residents. How many family practice doctors delivery babies? NA How many nurses do you have on staff for L&D for each shift? Supposed to be 8, was always 5 or 6. Do nurses place cytotec or do the doctors do it? Residents only. Are there any nurses that refuse to place cytotec? NA Are their doctors in house during the cytotec induction? Always Is the surgery crew in house during cytotec inductions? Always If you place cytotec,what was required to train you to place cytotec? RNs didn't plac eit, and believe me, they would have refused. Is Cytotec used on viable pregnancies or only on IUFD? Yes, but a far higher dose. PV and PO. Do you or would feel comfortable placing cytotec? No freakin' way. Not unless there was a surgical team in house.

I'm an avid twitterer, but I'm not sure about following AlNurses if it's only going to be just links to articles; particularly since I log in to AllNurses regularly enough that I can see when new articles pop-up anyway. Most people use twitter as a communication tool. Give a little, get a little. More personal, you know? Are there any plans for AllNurses to use Twitter for human communicaion as opposed to broadcasting/advertizing new article posts? I'd guarantee you'd get more followers if you did.

Hi, there, LA RNs! I'm an L&D RN from NYC currently on a travel assignment there and my fiancee and I are seriously considering relocating to N.O. once my current contract is up in April. Oschner seems to be the Big Fish around here. Anyone have any information regarding full-time salary, Per Diem shifts, etc? I'm loathe to take a permanent staff job again (travel nursing totally spoiled me) Does Oschner hire travel nurses, or do they work at all with local agencies for fill-in? Any info would be terrific! Thanks!