passion4parrots

At the hospital I work at, having a BSN will get you 50 cents more an hour than having an ADN.

I work in Springfield MO on a med-surg floor, on the 7 pm to 7am shift. I usually start out with five patients and almost always get another admission by 10 pm. Most of these are high acuity pt's just back from surgeries such as colon resections, Turps (with CBI) and mastectomy/TRAM patients not to mention ETOH WD (which require hourly assessments), We also get a large percentage of very elderly dementia pt's that are pulling out IV's, trying to crawl OOB and such. At the night shift change I pick up two more pt's which brings me up to eight and then usually get another admission during the night (which requires a ton of paperwork and time going over all their past med history and the endless amount of questions we have to ask them, then calling the doc for orders and such). I am a new grad with six months experience (on this floor only). It is very frustrating as I can't get everything done and end up staying at least an hour and a half after every shift just to do all the charting that I didn't have time for during the night. My question is: is this a normal load for these high acuity type pt's on a med-surg floor in most places in the US? It is incredibly stressful and I am already feeling "burnout" at only six months!!