Score one for the agency nurses

rsmith04 · Sep 28, 2005

Hello I am a new RN. I was thinking of applying to an agency along with my part time job. I was wondering about the experiences nurses have at the different agency staffed facilities? Is the stress really worth the pay?

Thanks Ms. Smith :)

I just had to share this..........
Many agency nurses complain that they always get the worst patient load at certain hospitals. We all know they do it but if we want to stay in the game we play along. When I was staff it was on burn icu and picu so we always gave agency the lighter load to protect our patients. So I've never actually been able to prove that this favoritism goes on until now.
At the start of my shift I was sitting within earshot of the oncoming and outgoing charges doing report. The outgoing actually said: "One and Two are the worst. One has that family. You can give them to an agency." "That one has been here longer." she added covertly tilting her head toward one of us. To my suprise the oncoming charge replied. "No, I'm not gonna do that. One and Two is too heavy. I'll take One." I was floored!!!! The outgoing got all flustered of course. "Well it's your call." she said. So the charge took One and she assigned Two to another staffer. She gave us agency nurses nice assignments.
It's just nice to know there are those who put RN safety and quality of care ahead of favoritism.

misschelei · Sep 28, 2005

Agency is not for new nurses! If you want to find out about agency nursing there are plenty of posts here addressing that. This post is about an experience that I had last night that I wanted to share.

rsmith04 · Sep 29, 2005

Agency is not for new nurses! If you want to find out about agency nursing there are plenty of posts here addressing that. This post is about an experience that I had last night that I wanted to share.

Well, acutually I am not a new nurse. I was an LPN for five years. So the agencies I have spoken with will consider my experience as a LPN and allow me to work. I was just trying to get some input about the experiences of working agency from other nurses before I got into it. Thanks

Ms. Smith

Haunted · Sep 29, 2005

It's a true fact that agency nurses "Rent a scrubs" do get slammed and it is nice to see that there are staffers who come clean once in a while. I had that happen last week. The RN came in for a required inservice, saw my patient load (all high acuity button pushers with intrusive family) and said how sorry she was for me!!!!

Here in California we have staffing ratios, and quite often I am primary. They usually give me the highest acuity as well. I've been doing registry for 9 years and I am really getting burnt out.

misschelei · Sep 29, 2005

Honestly I don't mind getting slammed as long as the staff is there to support me. I don't like sitting around anyway. I think a lot of the time they do it to give the staffers a break, boosts morale. And we don't get called unless a unit is slammed anyways. However if I feel I'm being taken advantage of or made an example out of by people with an agenda, I will speak up. I feel very strongly that it is supposed to be about keeping the patients and staff safe while providing quality care. I just couldn't believe my ears but I don't think that kind of maliciousness is the norm. The places that I worked staff, we gave the agency nurses light assignments until we knew them then assignments were based on thier skill level just like we did with the other staffers.

fergus51 · Sep 29, 2005

Our agency nurses get the easiest assignments since we often don't know them well and they may not know much about our unit. It isn't a good idea to give them the sickest patients.

I did have to laugh one day when I came on and got report from an agency nurse who thought her assigment was the worst in the unit... She didn't realize there was a whole nother room with sicker patients! Her/my assignment was one of the lighter ones:)