boywithacoin BSN

It's the pay system. From the OPM website: "Some pay plan codes, such as AD, may be used by any agency with an independent authority to administratively determine the rates of pay for any group or category of employees. Each agency must follow its ...

The policy is that to advance to Nurse II you need to have a BSN, and to advance to Nurse III you need to have an MSN, but you can currently advance with an academic requirement waiver by one degree. I.e. if you have an AS, you can get an academic re...

Google "Hours of Duty and Leave VA" and you should get a link to view VHA Directive 5011/3. "c. When tours of duty must necessarily vary from the normal tour, employees will be given the opportunity of discussing their assignment and of having t...

Pretty sure that AD is the plan that part-time nurses at the VA get hired under, but a quick search on USAJOBS tells me that there are agencies that do hire part-time on the GS scale: IHS and HHS being examples. Dunno that that's very helpful to you,...

All your other points aside, would appreciate if you found other ways to express yourself than appropriating indigenous roles and using the term "Indian" for indigenous peoples.

Your pay should match the current year's pay table. If the scales were just updated on 5/26/2023, it may be that pay admin is behind in updating salaries in the pay system. That has happened a few times to me over the years, more so since they centra...

I am not a PACT RN, but as the saying goes, if you've been to one VA, you've been to one VA. Meaning your role as a PACT RN at your local VA may look different from someone else who might reply here. At my VA, I think the PACT NCMs were able to telew...

I don't understand how/why my answers keep showing up earlier in the thread instead of below the comments I'm responding to. Does it show up like that for everyone else?

If I understand correctly, you mean Nurse 1, level 2, in which case it's likely that you would start at level 2 regardless if you have a BSN. I believe I've commented elsewhere in this thread that I was hired at a step higher than the other new grads...

For any promotion from one level to the next, you are placed at the steps that corresponds to just greater than the step that is 2 steps above your current step. Does that make sense? so example is if you're a nurse II step 8 and your salary is ...

Also, you can only advance in succession, so if you are Nurse I, you have to get to Nurse II before you can get Nurse III. And again, that's regardless of education (and sometimes experience).

It is not so cut and dry with academic degrees and RN levels at the VA. Grade 1 = Nurse 1, Grade 2 = Nurse 2, and Grade 3 = Nurse 3. If you are a beginning nurse with an associates or BSN, or new to the VA and don't "promote" yourself well enough to ...

I went to nursing school at San Jose State, then moved back to my homestate/town of Portland, OR to start my nursing career. I haven't lived in SJ for almost 4 years, but many of my classmates started their careers there. So, while I can't say how th...

2080 hours a year (40hrs/wk, 52wks/yr)

Huh? That's strange My facility uses 2080 hours. So did the last VA I got paid at.

Once you hit Nurse I Level 3 Step 8, you go to every other year for automatic step increases. I peaked early because I started at L2 S5, then got my yearly step increase AND promotion to L3 during my first proficiency, which put me at L3S8 my first y...

If you work at a VA as an SNT or VALOR student, or sometimes even as a CNA before getting hired as an RN, they will start you higher depending on the committee that boards you. I started as a new grad RN at L2 S5, but had done a VALOR externship at a...

Resurrecting this thread to share a funny typo we found from a doctor the other day. Patient was in for an injury they got while doing the deed (aka coitus); doc's note said, "injury sustained while engaging in colitis." YIKES. ??

My floor is almost always adequately staffed. We have a good culture and the folks who work here show up for work and there's not a huge turnover rate. my hospital doesn't have a float pool, though, so when other floors are not adequately staffed, we...

Same as OUxPhys. I've only ever seen agency CNAs, and even that is rare at my VA.

It's been 3 years since I did it, so I don't remember it super well, but if I recall correctly... They had multiple groups of interviewees come in throughout the day for a specific amount of time. For example, group A came in from 0800 - 0930, group ...

If I don't have an extra 10 seconds to actually watch the waste I just "witnessed," I tell the other RN to find someone else. When I need a witness, I make sure to ask them if they have time to both witness it in the omnicell and watch me waste.

I haven't worked or actually lived in either location, but have spent a lot of time in both places. My grandpa recently passed away and was at Salem Hospital leading up to his death; it's a beautiful hospital and I was impressed by the nursing care h...

OP, please keep us posted.

I'm a night owl anyway, so I maintain my NOC schedule all the time, unless I'm off for an extended period of time or have to be up during the day for something. Switching to a day schedule is really hard on me, and I end up, like you, feeling like I...