kthigpen

As a fellow DON I feel your pain! My solution to saving my sanity and my confidence was to take up an activities that relieved stress. Zip lining on a Saturday. Jogging at 5 am before work. Bicycle riding just before dark after work. My first year I worked 15 hrs/7 days a week. Went from a 2 star to a 5 star and had an awesome 3 tag QIS survey...and I was completely burnt out lol. Yes we are on call 24/7 and yes we are responsible for everything that goes on even when we don't know about it but if you take one hour to focus on YOU each day you will be in a much better frame of mind and be able to provide your staff with the positive influence you want to see in them.

My weekend RNs work 8 hrs. Personally I'm not picky on what time they work their 8 hrs. 6a-2p, 10am-6p, etc. I'm flexible. They are responsible for competing SNF assessments, wound assessments, handling staff issues such as call ins , IVs if any are due, and just monitoring the unit in general. Once you are orientated to the paperwork and learn the staff it's pretty easy. Normally caring for residents only on the weekend wouldn't work well but with SNF patients you are truly doing a head to toe assessment so having "a fresh set of eyes and ears" on them once a week is actually beneficial because you may see something the full time RN overlooked! Good luck if you decide to pursue it! The pay is great and the job itself is not exceedingly demanding.