Taking Vacations

39 minutes ago, Wuzzie said:

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.

I see. I worked on a stepdown floor so we could utilize the float pool and PRN nurses if needed but we usually had enough staff to cover, whether it was our floor or one of our sister units (there were 3, 24 bed units on each floor) so no one had to do "double work". Getting a vacation in Summer was tricky though if you didn't have enough seniority as senior nurses got first dibs on vacation requests (as it should be) but as long as we had the staff ( and seniority) getting two weeks off in Summer was easy. Of course there was a limit; everyone was limited to one, 2 week stretch during the "prime time" I.e. when the weather was nice.

You would need to do travel contracts.

Seems there are some mixed experiences! All have been very informative, thank you.

7 hours ago, nursing9462 said:

You would need to do travel contracts.

And yes! I have thought about travel nursing, but I hear I need about 2 years of experience before I can do that, so that'll have to wait.

I agree that it totally depends on your work. Mine happens to be great. We put in vacation requests online and they are generally always approved (they call in per diems to cover). But it’s the sort of thing that you won’t really know until you start working unfortunately.

4 minutes ago, CommunityRNBSN said:

I agree that it totally depends on your work. Mine happens to be great. We put in vacation requests online and they are generally always approved (they call in per diems to cover). But it’s the sort of thing that you won’t really know until you start working unfortunately.

Yes! Thank you for adding to this thread. It's good to hear you have a positive experience.

I went PRN because I had healthcare benefits from my husband and I was never allowed to use my PTO. I was given the days off that I requested, but I was not allowed to take my PTO-I still had to work the three twelves that week. I figured, if I can’t use it, then I’ll just take it. I went PRN and told them when they could schedule me-take it or leave it-they took it. Of course a new grad usually will not be given the PRN option.

First of all, congratulations on your graduation and new job.

Next, don't you have paid annual leave? Sorry I'm not answering anything, just curious about how things are in US. I'm a nurse in Rep of Ireland.

4 hours ago, Lee_Ryan said:

First of all, congratulations on your graduation and new job.

Next, don't you have paid annual leave? Sorry I'm not answering anything, just curious about how things are in US. I'm a nurse in Rep of Ireland.

Thank you! And yes, paid annual leave = paid time off (PTO). I was just asking how people go about using their PTO (how often, how long, etc.). We get a certain number of days/hrs accrued with our hrs worked, although it caps off at a maximum, and are supposed to be able to use it as we please (with some limitations at some places).

Well I opted out of PTO so my pay will be higher so I don't take days off based off of PTO. So far my manager has been very accommodating to my requests off so long as I request months in advance. Im currently on a 9 day off that I requested back in late May and was approved for in early June. I also have 9 days off in November (for a cruise but thats canceled but I still want the break) that I requested in February. I request well in advance and my manager and director typically give it to me. And august makes me one year of nursing.