VA Hospital

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Does anyone work at the VA and if so are you happy there? Pros & cons?

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Does anyone work at the VA and if so are you happy there? Pros & cons?
I am sorry you did not get any responses to this post. I would like to hear about this also.
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What area of Pa? I think I remember reading that they are thinking of closing one of them in the Pittsburgh area?? Not sure tho. I did clinical at the Oakland facility years ago and loved it.. It was my senior transitions rotation. I've never seen team nursing before and thought it was a good experience. The hospital definaltly in need of updating though..

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I have accepted a position at the VA in Oakland, there are plans to close the VA psych facility that is on Highland Drive but this is misleading. What is actually in the works is that the Oakland VA is planning on building a new hospital for the psych facility on that campus and then relocate the residents there. I don't start orientation until next month so I don't have a lot to offer yet. The facility is updated, nice equipment, beds, clean, state of the art computer system and med system. I am excited about working there.

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I myself live in PA very near to NJ but work in VANJHCS. The pay is excellant as my salary at the moment is $80(+)/year but that is without shift or weekend differential. I have workin the VA system for aprox 16years now & have worked always in psych. The pay I am thinking is the only perk. They CONSTANTLY float us all over & to all areas- med/surg or where ever they need a nurse. We get pulled on average 2X per week. The administration is HORRIBLE & completely unsuportive of nurses. The union is completely ineffective on handeling admins violations of their own policies. They basically do whatever they want to the employees & get away with it. You are NEVER allowed to call in sick & if you do you have to have a doctors note in the format they specify & even if you bring that they still find something wrong with it to hassel you & make you go back to the doctor & beg for yet another note with his name printed beneath his signature. You work CONSTANTLY understaffed & don't you DARE complain about it as you should be grateful you even have a job is the attitude you are met with. They hire people but the new hires immediately leave when they see the situation first hand. They don't YET have manditory OT but I can see it coming quickly in the future. If you don't have someone coming in to relieve you then you are forced to stay another shift regardless of if you want to or not, regardless of if you have someone to watch your children or not. There is NEVER any appreciation shown from the admin, don't ever make a mistake or you shall be crucified for it.

Things under the past administration were never like they have been for the past 9 years *sigh* I used to really enjoy my job but now I dread even going to the place. My problem is I am vested there so will remain until I have a least 20 years of service in so as not to mess with my pension. Luckily I have the priviledge of working with some really excellant staff. The night shift I work on is composed of older, long time nurses & NA's who know so very much & have good attitudes about providing the best care we can given our circumstances.

I don't know, I don't think I would recommend going into the VA system to anyone. Their ONLY saving grace at the moment is the salary & if this legislature about eliminating OT pay is passed well I have no idea how they will possibly staff the hospitals. The current admin will jump on the chance to force nurses to work beyond 40 hour work weeks for free as a means of combating the staff shortage. They don't care if you get burned out or not...

I will say there is a HUGE difference between VA facillities & their pay rates. In the VA system they have something called locality pay & this directly effects your salary based on where the current hospital is located. To my knowledge those facillities within the NJHCS VISION have one of the highest locality pays of the nation aside from California.

Good luck with your decision. My best wishes to you.

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I myself live in PA very near to NJ but work in VANJHCS. The pay is excellant as my salary at the moment is $80(+)/year but that is without shift or weekend differential. I have workin the VA system for aprox 16years now & have worked always in psych. The pay I am thinking is the only perk. They CONSTANTLY float us all over & to all areas- med/surg or where ever they need a nurse. We get pulled on average 2X per week. The administration is HORRIBLE & completely unsuportive of nurses. The union is completely ineffective on handeling admins violations of their own policies. They basically do whatever they want to the employees & get away with it. You are NEVER allowed to call in sick & if you do you have to have a doctors note in the format they specify & even if you bring that they still find something wrong with it to hassel you & make you go back to the doctor & beg for yet another note with his name printed beneath his signature. You work CONSTANTLY understaffed & don't you DARE complain about it as you should be grateful you even have a job is the attitude you are met with. They hire people but the new hires immediately leave when they see the situation first hand. They don't YET have manditory OT but I can see it coming quickly in the future. If you don't have someone coming in to relieve you then you are forced to stay another shift regardless of if you want to or not, regardless of if you have someone to watch your children or not. There is NEVER any appreciation shown from the admin, don't ever make a mistake or you shall be crucified for it.

Things under the past administration were never like they have been for the past 9 years *sigh* I used to really enjoy my job but now I dread even going to the place. My problem is I am vested there so will remain until I have a least 20 years of service in so as not to mess with my pension. Luckily I have the priviledge of working with some really excellant staff. The night shift I work on is composed of older, long time nurses & NA's who know so very much & have good attitudes about providing the best care we can given our circumstances.

I don't know, I don't think I would recommend going into the VA system to anyone. Their ONLY saving grace at the moment is the salary & if this legislature about eliminating OT pay is passed well I have no idea how they will possibly staff the hospitals. The current admin will jump on the chance to force nurses to work beyond 40 hour work weeks for free as a means of combating the staff shortage. They don't care if you get burned out or not...

I will say there is a HUGE difference between VA facillities & their pay rates. In the VA system they have something called locality pay & this directly effects your salary based on where the current hospital is located. To my knowledge those facillities within the NJHCS VISION have one of the highest locality pays of the nation aside from California.

Good luck with your decision. My best wishes to you.

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LOL I went back & read your reply closer & saw you commented on our "wonderful" BCMA computarized med system....lol. Wait until you have to actually work on it. It is VERY full of bugs, they should have taken more time to work out more of the kinks before implementing it in direct patient care. It is VERY inefficient & much more time consuming to pass meds than it ever was in the past. They have effectively tken away a great deal of control from the nurses by implementing this sytem & placed all the control in the hands of the pharmacy system to correct mistakes on orders, to set administration times, etc. You will se what I mean when you actually have to work with this hands on ;)

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LOL I went back & read your reply closer & saw you commented on our "wonderful" BCMA computarized med system....lol. Wait until you have to actually work on it. It is VERY full of bugs, they should have taken more time to work out more of the kinks before implementing it in direct patient care. It is VERY inefficient & much more time consuming to pass meds than it ever was in the past. They have effectively tken away a great deal of control from the nurses by implementing this sytem & placed all the control in the hands of the pharmacy system to correct mistakes on orders, to set administration times, etc. You will se what I mean when you actually have to work with this hands on ;)

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Thanks for your honesty. I have been on hospital orientation for 2 weeks and today was actually on my unit for the first time. I see what you mean about BCMA but I will learn it because I have to, at least all the patients meds were there. We have a robot that came to the floor and I sent some specimens to the lab in it, I really like that. I have to learn the computer and how to chart and to me it is a bit intimidating, I guess it comes with practice. The Pittsburgh VA pay is ok but no where as good as yours, but I hear that the other side of PA pays a lot more than us. (Just my luck). For all the flaws it is much worse in the private sector that I just left as far as I can see, time will tell.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Thanks for your honesty. I have been on hospital orientation for 2 weeks and today was actually on my unit for the first time. I see what you mean about BCMA but I will learn it because I have to, at least all the patients meds were there. We have a robot that came to the floor and I sent some specimens to the lab in it, I really like that. I have to learn the computer and how to chart and to me it is a bit intimidating, I guess it comes with practice. The Pittsburgh VA pay is ok but no where as good as yours, but I hear that the other side of PA pays a lot more than us. (Just my luck). For all the flaws it is much worse in the private sector that I just left as far as I can see, time will tell.

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working in va on long island for 14 years and of course we have our bad days--but i love the care we give the vets--most are appreciative yet some get to know the system VERY WELL !!!!about bcma-i love the system but you can't make the computer the "end-all"--- we all make mistakes and we have to 'check " each other---no one is in "charge"of bcma-i have found mds and pharmacists making mistakes with ordering/entering orders--and they have found nurses mistakes too.we use CPRS for orders as we are trying to be a paperless system--of course chaos reins when the computers 'go down' but thats not too often--we have just started using palm pilots to take to bedside for charting p/b as we hang them-we plan on adding labs and orders to be available in the palms so we can have all info available at bedside of pt--i am on a committee consisting of representatives (rns) from all va's in our visn to correlate and standardize some special systems for all va's in the visn-- i have worked as rn x39 years -(in private,county and now federal hospital) and find va most progressive and always changing

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working in va on long island for 14 years and of course we have our bad days--but i love the care we give the vets--most are appreciative yet some get to know the system VERY WELL !!!!about bcma-i love the system but you can't make the computer the "end-all"--- we all make mistakes and we have to 'check " each other---no one is in "charge"of bcma-i have found mds and pharmacists making mistakes with ordering/entering orders--and they have found nurses mistakes too.we use CPRS for orders as we are trying to be a paperless system--of course chaos reins when the computers 'go down' but thats not too often--we have just started using palm pilots to take to bedside for charting p/b as we hang them-we plan on adding labs and orders to be available in the palms so we can have all info available at bedside of pt--i am on a committee consisting of representatives (rns) from all va's in our visn to correlate and standardize some special systems for all va's in the visn-- i have worked as rn x39 years -(in private,county and now federal hospital) and find va most progressive and always changing

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