Scared to Work

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It sounds silly, I know. But as a new grad ADN RN, I am really scared to accept the kind of job offers I have been getting. I had dreams of working at a hospital right out of school. Unfortunately, it seems like the area market is saturated with RNs and the one or two good hospital jobs that come up have been statched up just as quickly.

I DO have bills to pay, so I have ventured out into the land of Assisted Living and Nursing Homes / Skilled Rehab. The only offers I got so far was one from HCR Manorcare ($19/hr. with 20 patients including some on trachs, IVs, wound vacs, etc) and now I have just gotten an offer from a Brookdale Senior Living (Assisted Living Facility where they let unlicensed personnel pass some meds and I would get 15 pts. to pass meds on, plus the care and paper work for all the rest!). That job pays only $17/hr., which is my rock-bottom rate!

Anyways, the things I am hearing about how far we need to go and how much our license is on the line at places like these makes me almost want to not even take one of those jobs. Would I be better off just waiting and hoping for a hospital to call me??

I have sent my resume out to many of them and am willing to commute. I also want to get my BSN asap bc many of the area hospitals will be requiring their staff to have that degree in a couple of yrs anyways. And as far as I know, you can't even attend a BSN program with any infraction / restriction on your license.

Do I have the right to be concerned here? Should I just finish my BSN in a hurry so that I don't have to worry about working in one of these scary LTC facilities??

I don't mind higher acuity and more attention to detail, I just seem to have a real adversion to delegating med passes to ULP and having 20-40 pts. /shift.

I have always been kind of a 'worst case scenario' type of thinker and nursing school has magnified that tendency in me.

Please give me some advice xo

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I'm on your side. I would NEVER take one of those positions.

Hold out for something better and at least START your BSN classes.

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Specializes in Emergency, Trauma, Critical Care.

I would take the HCR manorcare job. You will get more hospital like experience to help you get into a job you want. Depending on the help, in a SNF/skilled nursing. 20 patients can be manageable. I had 38 patients on night shift in a SNF, mind you know IVs, but trachs/vents/fragile diabetics/tube feedings. I remember always thinking if they cut my assignment in half it'd be so manageable. You won't know if it's doable until you try it. And unfortunately, in this economy, any job is a job. Have you looked at Long Term Acute Rehab? It's pretty much a hospital setting for patients who just can't seem to get out of a hospital. Good luck!

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Hopefully you found something better by now. May I ask what state you live in? The only reason I ask is because I live in Florida and know that most hospitals around here want a BSN within a few years of hire and many new grad two year RNs that I know have been turned down from hospitals because they are inexperienced (they were told that they would of been hired if they had at least been an LPN beforehand). I will tell you that I think you were low balled for the pay that they offered you. You are new to nursing but are an RN. Were you hired for an LPN position? The reason I ask is because the offer was significantly lower than what I would of expected but maybe there are companies that pay based on experience (although this would be one of the few that I've seen). I'm an LPN who was hired shortly before your post for one of the facilities that you mentioned and ran like hell in less than a year. They short staffed the heck out of me...half the time I not only was the nurse and passing meds to the residents that the med techs could not legally pass the meds to (placing in mouth, crushes, spoon fed, etc) but the med tech would not show up or I got stuck being the med tech too because no aide bothered to show up for that shift. I would be scheduled for a 12 hour day but when there is no nurse to follow me and no mech tech to pass meds guess what? I got to stay until all 110 residents had their pills, compliments of me!...Not the mention all the EMS transports, incident reports for falls, medical triages, and paperwork that was piling up. The job was okay when I first started and had an HWD that backed me up (she would actually come in and pass the other meds so that the conditions were at least some what safe). When she quit and there was no one for a while and then they got someone but she was absolutely useless this is when I got handed all three (yes, three) full med carts to pass out. I would show up at 7am, leave at 11pm, then repeat the same thing the next day only that was the day that I would get out after I finished all the paperwork from the past two illegal days in hell. These facilities are required to have minimum staffing by the state....do not think that they will not try to get away with noncompliance. They did it all the time. Staff would no call no show and they would not get fired so they would repeatedly do so. They refused to call in agency even just to have a few warm bodies to make the staffing count legal. They only cared about their profit and the residents were left in danger. I hated that place and only stayed as long as I did because I was afraid of what would happen to the residents if one more responsible human being quit. Of course this was the weekend so there was no management there to see the mess....I was left in charge but given no power to make the situation safe. Good luck with your career. I'm sure by now you've found something that you enjoy and are even closer to finishing your degree!

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I live in the Midwest and got another, slightly better job offer from another nursing home and took it. Brookdale wNted me to sign on cor 16-hr shifts... every weekend, all cor the convenience of the nsg mgr and the f act that they obviously couldn't keep people around. I'm so glad something else came up:)

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