I just received two job offers. One is for telemetry in a hospital and the other is in a sub-acute rehab place. I am a new grad who is also enrolled in an RN-BSN-MSN (nurse practitioner program). WHich of the two will be better in the future? Sure the money in the sub acute is significantly more but it's not in a hospital. Will that hurt me?
Sub Acute is 8 hr shifts with every other weekend while telemetry is 12 hrs 7 AM to 7 PM and no weekends.
I've worked both areas. You will learn a lot more on a Telemetry unit.
Sub-acute rehab is just another name for nursing home.Patients are stable, but still need skilled care, vents tons of wound care,etc. The workload is brutal!
My first job as a RN was in tele. You get a lot of experience there and a lot of exposure to critical care. There will be a lot more opportunities for you if you decide to switch departments in the future such as ICU or ER. Where I worked the critical care class was mandatory for tele nurses as well as the ICU and ER nurses. And you'll become a master as rhythm strips and assessments. It's just a great floor to work on if not just for all that you learn (cardiac drugs, the disease process - because you don't JUST care for heart patients with no other disease process. You care for anyone and everyone with a heart issue who also has diabetes, could have a broken leg, but they have a hx of heart problems...just a lot of different people). But tele has a lower nurse to patient ratio than if you worked on a straight med/surg floor, so you can do your job safely.
It's the location . One is 30 min south going to NYC (where the pay they are offering is avg) and the other is 30 min North going into Albany (the offer is avg for the region).
What is your cost of living, including gas/transportation costs?
It would be nice for a NP to have tele experience. I didn't go through EKG classes when I was a lot younger, and i regret it. Even though I never worked tele (I did NOT like cardiac...but loved neuro/ortho- go figure), when I worked peds, I often put my kids on monitors....with them, I knew the basic stuff to look for - and most of the issues were w/rate, not so much rhythm. But a few kids went into SVT. The reg peds floor was connected to PICU, so one of their nurses would kindly check out any funky strips.
Do the old pro/con list for each place....see which place has the most pros to balance out any cons :)
Been there,done that, ASN, RN
7,241 Posts
I've worked both areas. You will learn a lot more on a Telemetry unit.
Sub-acute rehab is just another name for nursing home.Patients are stable, but still need skilled care, vents tons of wound care,etc. The workload is brutal!