Taking Vacations

Nurses General Nursing

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Hey there! I'm a new grad and I luckily have a position lined up. I'm jumping way ahead here, but I'm just curious and trying to get a better idea of how easy/difficult is it to take vacations as a nurse? Obviously I wouldn't be taking time off any time soon, probably not until at least 6 months after starting my new job. My partner and I were discussing the perks of 12 hr shifts, and we would love to be able to go on 3 week long vacations, but I'm worried, would that look poorly? Is it generally frowned upon to take such long vacations or is it more like if you have the PTO, then feel free? I think ideally we would like to take 2-3 week vacations twice a year. How likely would I be allowed to do that? What is your experience taking vacation? How long and how often do you go?

And how much freedom do you have with scheduling your shifts? Can you do 3 in a row at the beginning of a week and 3 in a row at the end of the next week to have time off in between without taking PTO? Is that frowned upon?

I'm just curious how going about vacationing is like as an RN. I appreciate any input! Thanks in advance!

Specializes in Cardiology.

It depends where you work and your manager. My old employer we never had an issue with vacations other than you couldn't take a vacation between Thanksgiving and New Years. I worked 3 12's then and it was very easy to stretch a 2 week vacation into almost a month off. Does it look bad? Absolutely not. That is one of the perks of working 3 12's. We also got 8 hours of PTO every pay period.

My current employer we have no problems with vacations and I get 5 weeks of vacation a year but it is a little harder to turn 2 weeks into almost a month of.

2 Votes

Thanks everyone for the replies! I appreciate it. Gives me a better idea of what to expect not just from my employer, but if I were to go elsewhere, what it's generally like in the profession.

11 hours ago, OUxPhys said:

I worked 3 12's then and it was very easy to stretch a 2 week vacation into almost a month off. Does it look bad? Absolutely not. That is one of the perks of working 3 12's. We also got 8 hours of PTO every pay period.

My current employer we have no problems with vacations and I get 5 weeks of vacation a year but it is a little harder to turn 2 weeks into almost a month of.

OuxPhys, would you mind elaborating on how you were able to stretch a 2 week vacation into almost a month off? And what your vacations look like now that your current employer offers 5 weeks a year?

22 minutes ago, caal19 said:

Thanks everyone for the replies! I appreciate it. Gives me a better idea of what to expect not just from my employer, but if I were to go elsewhere, what it's generally like in the profession.

OuxPhys, would you mind elaborating on how you were able to stretch a 2 week vacation into almost a month off? And what your vacations look like now that your current employer offers 5 weeks a year?

Week 1: Work the first three days

Week 2: off

Week 3: off

Week 4: Work the last three days

It turns into 22 days off instead of 14, but it's brutal. If you want to torture yourself even more, you can go straight to the airport after a 12 hour shift and return just in time to get from the airport back to work. I guess that would be 24 days ...sort of.

Specializes in Cardiology.
27 minutes ago, Sour Lemon said:

Week 1: Work the first three days

Week 2: off

Week 3: off

Week 4: Work the last three days

It turns into 22 days off instead of 14, but it's brutal. If you want to torture yourself even more, you can go straight to the airport after a 12 hour shift and return just in time to get from the airport back to work. I guess that would be 24 days ...sort of.

What this poster said haha. I can take two weeks off back to back but now instead of 22 days off it's more like 18.

1 hour ago, Sour Lemon said:

Week 1: Work the first three days

Week 2: off

Week 3: off

Week 4: Work the last three days

It turns into 22 days off instead of 14, but it's brutal. If you want to torture yourself even more, you can go straight to the airport after a 12 hour shift and return just in time to get from the airport back to work. I guess that would be 24 days ...sort of.

1 hour ago, OUxPhys said:

What this poster said haha. I can take two weeks off back to back but now instead of 22 days off it's more like 18.

Oh okay so just to clarify, that would be taking 6 shifts off/using 72 hours of PTO? Did I do that right? And if that's the case, you would still have PTO left over if let's say you accrue 5 weeks of PTO/year? So you could actually take off for more than 6 shifts or do you just set the limit at 6 so it's not so hard on the unit?

I must have an awesome employer. In my first year of working as a new grad, I took a 2 week long vacation, which used 6 days of PTO (which I saved from 2 years of working as a CNA). I also was a CNA on a different unit, so I had a different director/ boss. So I do not think me being a CNA there affected their decision to let me have a trip.

The way the scheduling works is that we all can choose our preferred days to be scheduled. We also get to choose 5 days per pay period to choose to have off. I usually got the days I chose. I scheduled myself to allow for a week long trip to New York by working 4 days in a row, 1 day off, then the last 2. I did this cause I didn't want to use my PTO that time.

38 minutes ago, caal19 said:

Oh okay so just to clarify, that would be taking 6 shifts off/using 72 hours of PTO? Did I do that right? And if that's the case, you would still have PTO left over if let's say you accrue 5 weeks of PTO/year? So you could actually take off for more than 6 shifts or do you just set the limit at 6 so it's not so hard on the unit?

You would be taking six 12 hour shifts off ...72 hours of PTO. Most people who do things this way do it because they're not allowed to take off "longer". The employer still gets their full time hours out of the employee before the employee hits the road.

Specializes in NICU/Mother-Baby/Peds/Mgmt.

A trick I learned by making the schedule is if you do nights and days try to give people a 4 day weekend off when going from days to nights. So they work Thursday days, off at 1900, then off F-S-S-M and not back till Tuesday night. This gives them Tuesday off to travel back instead of Monday so they have the extra night. One of my more recent jobs was for the military and the active duty folks couldn't be off more than 4 days without taking leave so this got them a nice mini-vacation without using leave days.

Specializes in Cardiology.
9 hours ago, caal19 said:

Oh okay so just to clarify, that would be taking 6 shifts off/using 72 hours of PTO? Did I do that right? And if that's the case, you would still have PTO left over if let's say you accrue 5 weeks of PTO/year? So you could actually take off for more than 6 shifts or do you just set the limit at 6 so it's not so hard on the unit?

I work at a government hospital so I still get separate sick and vacation time which is amazing but yes, at my old job I made sure to bank hours before I took a vacation. It is only 6 shifts (12 hours) so it isn't really hurting the unit. Only two people can go on vacation at the same time.

5 minutes ago, OUxPhys said:

It is only 6 shifts (12 hours) so it isn't really hurting the unit.

Just to be clear, the impact of having a particular person gone for this long is unit dependent. In my unit it means someone has to take on the responsibility for the clinics of the absent nurse in addition to their own which then means that the covering nurse is pulled from other duties (triage, lab, etc)forcing other nurses to do double work as well. Because of the nature of our unit we cannot utilize the float pool or PRN nurses.

Also, if you work on a large unit, getting 2-3 weeks off at once in the Summer is less likely when there is a limit as to how many nurses can be off at once. Your ability to creatively schedule yourself to achieve 2 weeks off or more is a crap-shoot so I wouldn't bank on it.

1 Votes
Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
On 7/12/2020 at 10:16 PM, Wuzzie said:

Then I hate to break it to you but it’s literally going to be decades before you have that much time off available. Typically, as a nurse, you will accrue 2 wks per year for approximately the first 5 years. This is not given in a lump sum at the beginning of the year, you accrue it at a certain percentage per hour worked. Basically, you will have to work a year to earn the time off. Your next bump up will be to 3 weeks which just means you earn a higher percentage of time off per hour worked. As far as being able to take more than one week off at a time that will be completely dependent on your employer but I have to tell you, in over 3 decades at this, if there are many people wanting time off it will be less likely that you will be granted extended vacations as you desire. I’m afraid your dream of 2 long vacations per year is going to remain a dream for some time.

This has not been my experience.

At my first nursing job, full time RNs got 8 hours PTO every 2 weeks. I was not full time, I was regular part time and I got 4 hours every 2 weeks. Since my work schedule was every Friday and every other Saturday and Sunday, I could take an 11 day vacation only using one PTO day. When I left my job, I got a PTO payout check of 1300.00 because I never used all my PTO. And I was never once denied PTO.

Of course, your mileage may vary.

3 Votes
6 minutes ago, FolksBtrippin said:

This has not been my experience.

Being part time makes a big difference.

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