5 8s, no thanks!

bbcewalters, NP · Nov 17, 2019

UMMM you are gonna have a hard time finding a "full time position" with benefits only working 3 10s or 4 8s. Maybe parttime..... good luck.

babyNP., APRN · Nov 17, 2019

See if you can switch to acute care so that you can work in a hospital. You will most likely have to do weekends & holidays but they generally get to do longer, but less frequent shifts. I do about 6x24 hour shifts per month

ThePrincessBride, MSN, RN, NP · Nov 17, 2019

2 hours ago, bbcewalters said:
UMMM you are gonna have a hard time finding a "full time position" with benefits only working 3 10s or 4 8s. Maybe parttime..... good luck.

What are you talking about? 30 hours in many healthcare places is considered full-time.

6 minutes ago, babyNP. said:
See if you can switch to acute care so that you can work in a hospital. You will most likely have to do weekends & holidays but they generally get to do longer, but less frequent shifts. I do about 6x24 hour shifts per month

I don't think an FNP can work acute care.

And 24 hours? That's intense.

babyNP., APRN · Nov 17, 2019

Acute care NP is designed to work in the hospital, that’s why I suggested switching to acute care. I think it’s called agacnp (adult gero acute care np). Many of them work 12 hour shift type work. 24s are not for everyone, that is true. At a level 2, I usually get to sleep the whole night. At a level 3, it’s hit or miss but it’s pretty rare that I don’t get at least a few hours of sleep.

MikeFNPC, MSN · Nov 17, 2019

You definitely need to know what you're getting into before finishing, otherwise you'll despise the profession. I'm starting to see several opportunities to work from home such as tele-medicine. Maybe there are longer shift/fewer day options there.

I hear what you say about M-F 8-5, it's what I do now. I'm stuck because of how much I make. Good luck finding what you want.

ThePrincessBride, MSN, RN, NP · Nov 17, 2019

7 hours ago, babyNP. said:
Acute care NP is designed to work in the hospital, that’s why I suggested switching to acute care. I think it’s called agacnp (adult gero acute care np). Many of them work 12 hour shift type work. 24s are not for everyone, that is true. At a level 2, I usually get to sleep the whole night. At a level 3, it’s hit or miss but it’s pretty rare that I don’t get at least a few hours of sleep.

My program won't let me switch tracks but if I was going to work in hospital (including nights), I would have picked Neonatal. But the rotating shifts is why I decided against it.

1 hour ago, MikeFNPC said:
You definitely need to know what you're getting into before finishing, otherwise you'll despise the profession. I'm starting to see several opportunities to work from home such as tele-medicine. Maybe there are longer shift/fewer day options there.
I hear what you say about M-F 8-5, it's what I do now. I'm stuck because of how much I make. Good luck finding what you want.

Working from home sounds amazing to me! I've never considered telemedicine but I will have to look into that.

noyesno, MSN, APRN, NP · Nov 17, 2019

I've decided to just work part-time because of this.

I work Mondays: 12-4

Tuesdays: 10-6

Thursdays: 10-6

Make about the same as I did as a full-time hospital RN.

Family Practice FNP.

ThePrincessBride, MSN, RN, NP · Nov 17, 2019

14 minutes ago, noyesno said:
I've decided to just work part-time because of this.
I work Mondays: 12-4
Tuesdays: 10-6
Thursdays: 10-6
Make about the same as I did as a full-time hospital RN.
Family Practice FNP.

Do you get benefits? Or do you have to pay for them?

noyesno, MSN, APRN, NP · Nov 17, 2019

1 minute ago, ThePrincessBride said:
Do you get benefits? Or do you have to pay for them?

They offered me benefits but I'm on my husband's plan.

This is a private practice.

I knew these doctors from working at the hospital for 8.5 years. That helped me a lot. They basically created this job for me.

Put in the hard work, make the connections. It REALLY pays off.

djmatte, ADN, MSN, RN, NP · Nov 17, 2019

To be fair, as a new provider the last thing you should worry about at this stage is how many days a week you're working. I might argue as a new provider, the more days a week you are working the better. This gives you the broadest opportunity to acquire a good panel of patients and actually learn your craft. It gives your colleagues (and bosses) the ability to see what you can do and eventually consider alternative schedules down the road.

We have a few providers that have been with the company for years. They have acquired a broad and loyal panel that allows them to come in on whatever schedule they choose and only work 3 days a week. Some of them see as many patients (or more) in 3 days than some of us newer providers see working 5 eights. They are still considered "full time" because their numbers are holding up. Not all places have this flexibility though and even then most won't let someone fresh out of school try this. Stay focused on school and what kind of provider you want to be for now. Your schedule will flush out as you advance in your career.

adventure_rn, MSN, NP · Nov 18, 2019

On 11/17/2019 at 3:29 PM, djmatte said:
To be fair, as a new provider the last thing you should worry about at this stage is how many days a week you're working. I might argue as a new provider, the more days a week you are working the better.

I agree. As a new grad, you'll probably just have to take what you can get.

As another poster pointed out, 30 hours a week isn't truly full-time, even though you're eligible for benefits. You may find that there are barriers to starting out as a 0.75 FTE employee. On AN, we're always encouraging people to start at true 'full time' before pulling back on your hours in order to maximize your learning opportunities in your first year; hence the reason why most jobs (RN or NP) won't let you start out part-time.

In addition, you may have a harder time finding a new grad job that will let you work 30 hours a week depending on the competitiveness of your job market. It is going to be very expensive for your new employer to train you (arguably far more expensive than it would be to train a new grad RN, which costs $50,000+). It's in your employers' best interest to make you work as many hours as possible (milking the most profit from you), especially if they're paying for your benefits. You'll be in a much better position to negotiate 30 hour work weeks once you have experience, but starting out, that could be a very hard sell.