NurseLatteDNP

I have worked there for several years and can help answer some of them. In general, I have enjoyed working for Baylor, and in general the nurse to patient ratios are lower compared to other DFW hospitals. I have worked for 2 others in the last 10 years. Hourly pay is slightly lower compared to UT Southwestern or Medical City. However, Baylor downtown pays bonuses to nurses 2x year if they meet quality goals. Each bonus it is approximately $900-$1500 depending on quality numbers. This is only done at the Dallas hospital, not other Baylors. If you don't have a BSN, you will be asked to sign an agreement form to get it completed within 3 years. Benefits are ok. I cover my whole family and pay $25 per visit if we pick a Tier 1 provider. Tier 2 or out of network are more and not recommended. UT Southwestern or THR have better benefits. Mother baby has a low turnover, and great management. Good luck!

I misunderstood your question then. No, I do not have the answer on the salary breakdown.

There is a raise for GNs that occurs every 6 months. I believe it is 50c per 6 months, but I am not 100% sure. This is added to the base pay.

For a brand new RN, base pay is $25 and you get a (automatic) raise every 6 months for 2 years.

If you pick up extra shifts during the week, you are not getting the TDA differential, only regular shift differential. Every unit can only have up to 50% TDA staff working on weekends, so if we have 10 RNs on a Saturday/Sunday up to 5 can be TDA. Most units don't have that many. Positions are posted on their site and labeled as TDA, it's a regular position and not a program. Usually NP students or people who need to be home with kids during the week are in these positions. BUMC requires 1 year experience for TDA.

I think it's not even a comparison. Baylor's culture is nurse friendly and they center themselves around the employees. The only other hospital with a similar nurse friendly culture I have experienced was MD Anderson.

Our GNs didn't have to sign any employment contracts.

If you were told to buy royal blue, I would go with that. We wear navy blue in Dallas.

Baylor RN uniform color is navy blue. The only unit that wears a different color is the ED.

Baylor Dallas interviews for September have been released in the last 7 days. Many of the managers are just now reviewing the resumes with the recruiters. Start date for most of the GN orientation is Sept 13. Good luck!

One of the lobbyists for the Texas Nurses Association told me that hospitals will continue making staffing cuts at bedside until nurses start billing for their professional services like every other discipline does (like PT/OT/speech for example). Once we start making the hospital money, they will start investing in the nursing workforce.

Of course I would never mention patients by name. I identify the specific situation that the nurse excelled in.

I am in oncology at a trauma level 1 & magnet hospital. Our charge nurses on days don't carry patients. The charge nurses on nights have anywhere from 0-2 patients, depending on census.

I went from hourly pay to salarly pay and took a major pay-cut. But the hours were better and the level of stress was lower.

I agree with taking a step back and breathe. Your preceptor did a good thing for letting you learn from your error. I am on a hematology unit and 8 weeks for a new grad is not enough time. We do 12 weeks and 1 week of classroom oncology internship. Sit down with your manager and the educator and ask for a possibility to orient a little longer on nights.

Contact the Infusion Nursing Society. Our PICC manager (vascular access manager) is on their board of directors. I'm sure they will have the answer for you.

Apply for internships. That is the best way to get into another hospital specialty.

Complete leader rounds on the patients on your unit. Ask the patients who they want to recognize and why. Send a hand-written note to the home of the staff member. Describe that you are thankful for their work with that specific patient for that specific intervention. Include a closing statement that you are thankful that they are part of your team. I also include a gift card or a movie ticket. My staff members love this kind of acknowledgement. They get to show it off at home. Many of my nurses are millenials and tell me that their parents love how I'm treating them. This is just one of the things I am doing for the staff to feel appreciated. My unit has the highest employee recognition scores on the whole 980 bed hospital.

I don't count it as med-surg if I'm interviewing someone with LTC on their resume.

Request a 1:1 conversation. Don't bring up other people's salaries. The manager already has that info and it will make your request seem less genuine. Write down specifics how you contribute to the team and make them better. You also need to offer something your manager needs, like participating in a new committee, working on unit specific processes and improvements etc. Make your manager understand that giving you a raise will benefit the whole unit. This works 99% of the time on me.

I volunteer with the National Council of State Board of Nursing. They highly recommend that every applicant goes through all the resources on their site. It is full of great info, blue prints and test plans. Good luck! Test Plans | NCSBN

Maybe try transferring to Baylor Dallas or applying to Presbyterian Dallas. Nurse to pt ratios will be lowest at those 2 hospitals based on my experience. However, nursing on the east coast will not compare to anything in Texas. We lost several nurses who moved this way because of lack of jobs in NYC or upstate NY. But they end up moving back within a year because they say that NY is more nurse friendly and they have more freedom in decision making.

I am working at one hospital and teaching clinicals at the other 2. I can tell you that the best nurse friendly culture I have noticed was at Baylor. When you walk through the place, you see nurses smiling any place you visit. Magnet is a huge part of the culture and they are getting their 4th designation soon. Unfortunately happy nurses are not a common sight on inpatient units any longer. Compared to Medical City and UT, nurse to pt ratios are much lower at Baylor. But your pay will most likely be lower. UT and Medical City will pay much more and occasionally offer sign on bonuses. It's all really what you are looking for.

Read the book "Patients Come Second". It is explaining how happy workers equal happy patients. On my unit, we don't talk HCAHPS. We talk about improving rewards and recognition of bedside staff. But we have implemented something to reduce call light delays. Our patient care techs work 6-6 and the nurses work 7-7. This gives us call light coverage during shift change.

No. Nursing has been good to me. But I would not want to go through all of it again. I got burned out on bedside nursing and I have been in nursing administration for the last 6 years. It is a thankless job and consist of no work-life balance. Hospitals have become a business and it is all about making a profit. The genuine connections with patients are tied to HCAHPS numbers. I have worked in variety of hospitals, rural and urban, profit and non for profit, magnet and non magnet....all are very similar in the way they make cuts at bedside first if budget is tight. If I could make a living with teaching at a nursing school, I would do that full time. I have always loved mentoring and seeing the spark in new nurses. Don't get me wrong, I love nursing for what it is, for the people at bedside, for the patients, and for the genuine compassionate experiences it gave me. But I would not recommend nursing to anyone right now.