Question about acute dialysis schedule??

jb2u, ASN, RN · Mar 2, 2010

Our schedule for full-time employees is 7a-7p three days a week. You have 2-3 on-call days a month.

Labellezza · Mar 3, 2010

Thanks for responding. I'm just trying to get a general idea of how other acute nurses work. Couldn't imagine everyone working everyday " until ".....

Natkat, BSN, MSN, RN · Mar 4, 2010

It varies with staffing. We generally work four 10-hour days, but if staffing is down we wind up working lots of extra hours all hours of the day AND night. Generally we take call once a week, but again, if staffing is low we might have to take call twice a week. Then it all comes to a screeching halt when the census drops and we can go weeks with only 20 or so hours a week. It just depends. You have to be disciplined and hang on to all the extra money you make working overtime to carry you through the slow times. If you like having a predictable schedule, it's not for you. If you can handle a crazy schedule and being flexible, it's a great job.

Tish88 · Mar 8, 2010

Sounds like your team needs to hire some more acute nurses.

When I did acutes, I worked 4 - 10 hr days and covered a 750 bed acute hospital. Our hospital ran dialysis shifts 24 hours/day and I would be on call 1 day a week, that would be to just cover some added treatments, since we had a night shift coming in to do treatments too. You went off call at 7pm, and the night shift person would be on call til 7am.

If you was the weekend call person, you would be on call 7a-7p or 7p-7a. Saturday & Sunday.

I don't know what company you are working for that is making you work that many hours without a day off. That is UNSAFE!!! I bet the turn over rate of staff is high???

AcuteRNlax · Jan 9, 2011

Ty-

I feel your pain. Our hospital just started an acute program. We have only two RNs so we share the work/call time. Only one of us in working or on-call at a time so we get half of our time off, but are on-call or working the other half of our lives. It equates to 168 hours of service to the hosptial each pay period. We are paid for 80 hours a payperiod whether we work that much or not to cover for all of our call hours. The bad thing is neither of us can take a vacation and I don't know what would happen if something ever happened to one of us and we couldn't work. We have no back up, no one else in the hospital would even know how to turn on a machine, non the less do a treatment. We do all of the education for the hospital, we have no techs, so we do all of our water cultures, cleaning, ordering, stocking and other miscellaneous things in our unit. We are only a two chair unit, which is where we do most of treatments. We also start CRRT txs in the ICU and monitor them, with the ICU RNs maintaining the txs. We have been complaining and will probably be hiring a part-time RN shortly. I think you should re-evaluate your work situation, if you are working everyday, you should be getting paid alot of money.

Dialysis RN1 · Jan 13, 2011

Wow, we cover 8 hospitals. The nurses are scheduled 4 days a week and start at 7AM. the day ends when the day ends, there is no predicting when a patient is going to need our services. The hours we put in run very similar to NatKat above. if its dead we go home if its slammed we stay late. call is scheduled 1-2 days a week with an every 8 week weekend call rotation. out of the 8 campuses we have two hospitals that have a unit. one is a 4 bed unit the other is a six station unit everything else is done bedside. we have 12 full time RN's 3 Full time and 1 part time tech and do about 350 treatments a month. It works well for us but to be an acute dialysis nurse is unlike many nursing positions. the hours can be long, there is a great deal of autonomy and the satisfaction of the position is one of the most gratifying that I know. It certainly is not for everyone and I would suggest that if it isn't working for you that you get out before you burn out. Acute dialysis nurses take care of the sickest of the sick and you always need your A game.