Galatea

Thanks for the response. I am amazed to hear how little specialty nurses get compensated for being on call. The hospitals require that they be on call for emergency hearts, but $2 an hour is VERY little. And then to have to use your hard earned PTO to sleep and/or recover from the previous night---AMAZING! After hearing similar responses from other forums I've joined, I am no longer surprised that there is a critical nursing shortage. This is a very stre$$ful and high tech career we work in and we $hould be more highly compen$ated ,if ho$pital$ want a modicum of retention.

Hello, I am a O.R. nurse working in Northern Calif. at a hospital that does heart surgery. For the many years I have worked there, there has always been one of the four nurses on call every night who is a heart nurse specialist. We have four people on call for the very frequent possibility of there being two cases going on at once. Many time these cases are not heart cases, but the heart nurse has to come in anyway. If we get called for a general case for a few hours and then later have to come in for an emergency heart, we are usually 'fried' the next day. My question to the heart nurses out there is: How does your hospital handle speciality heart call? Do you have heart call only and what are you compensated? Thank you, in advance, for your responses.