cbreezen482

To put it bluntly, my orientation to the Med/Surg unit I just left sucked! They hired 5 of us as new grads, all to work nights. They were in such a bind to get us on the floor due to being short staffed, we got like maybe 2 weeks of orientation on days. Then we were fed to the wolves! My first night on night orientation, I took 9 patients by myself and was told to just "ask questions" if I had any. They made several of the new night nurses charge RN's after only a couple months on the floor. Talk about dangerous and overwhelming!

Southeastern IL, the hospital I started at, base pay for new grads was 14.77 an hour, $1 for shift differential for nights 7p-7a. Got a whooping $.34 cent raise after 6 months! Moving to the Springfield IL area right now and got offered about $3.00 more an hour for evenings 3p-11p on a Cardiac Rehab unit. What you make definately depends on where your live and the cost of living. But the first hospital I told ya about was the lowest paying hospital in that area. You could drive 30-40 minutes in any direction and make about $3-4 more an hour depending on experience. Just depends on what we're willing to put up with I guess, and as long as people continue to work there (non-union also) they will never change their pay scale. There were charge nurses where I worked before who had been there YEARS and I know probably only made $1-2 more an hour than I did as a new grad. How sad!

Fortunately, yes, we do have night clinical supervisors who are there to help us or answer questions. Another advantage we have is that all of the new grads on my night shift (including myself) all went through Nursing school together. So most of us know each others strengths and weaknesses, which is pretty nice.

As a new RN (graduated in May), I really look up to the "older" nurses in my facility. They don't make us feel stupid for asking questions or wanting a little guidance the first time we do a procedure. But the problem where I work is that they have hired a total of 6 new grads, and stuck all of us on nights! Thankfully one of the new RN grads worked on the unit during nursing school and and he now is a charge. But he's preparing to transfer to ICU. Our other Veteran night charge has only worked in the facility for one year, and while she's an excellent nurse and really helpful, she's gone on personal leave for the time being. So basically we have all new grads running the night shift on our floor and at times I've been put into the Charge role, which is something that I personally am not comfortable with at this point in my career!

I also live in a rural area and typically have between 6-9 patients per nurse on nights. Often we don't have an aide on nights either, sometimes 1 aide if we're lucky. Time management and organization are a major factor in not getting swamped with charting. If we have no aide to do vitals at 2100, I typically pass my med's, do my shift assessment and take vitals in one swoop, which is praised by our Nurse Manager and the night Nursing coordinators.

I agree with you NurseBee....I work nights 7-7 and we are constantly busy! Usually between 7-11 we're all running around like chickens with our heads cut off, many nights without aide's and understaffed. Once we get everyone settled and in bed (if we're lucky enough to not have the sweet little Alzheimer's pts thinkin it's 6am and time to get up)...we're busy doing other things, ie: Stocking med carts, check crash carts, cleaning up rooms from dicharges (our housekeeping is VERY anal where I work..won't clean a room if a Coke can is sitting on the bedside table), not to mention the 2 hour charting that we are required to do on all our patients, and 4 hour reassessments. I find plenty to do on nights!

something else that I didn't see mentioned (which doesn't mean it wasn't listed, but workin 7p-7a in the dark is takin a toll on my eyes! hehe) but... Don't be afraid to stand up for yourself...to your co-workers, Docs, etc. Everyone knows that there's always at least one of those "I'm-the-all-knowing-super-nurse-and-I-will-question-EVERYTHING-you-do!" more than likely working on your unit. Be confident in your abilities and don't take their crap! You didn't go through 2+ years of Nursing school to be talked down too! And as for Doc's......I've come to the conclusion that they really do appreciate us. They're just too dang hard headed to let us know that!

East Central here...Newton/Olney area to be exact!! Hi Olney Med/Surg!