Quick question, I feel like a lot of people enter the OR to work "business hours" (or something close to that) shifts. I actually went into nursing to avoid the whole 9-5pm thing (of course, not just that!! lol). Is it possible for a NEW GRAD to request/get hired to work Weekends and/or Nights? I love having days free for other projects and family time. Ideally I would LOVE to work 7am-7pm Saturdays and Sundays only, but I don't know if that is realistic. Oh and I live in a very large urban city. Thank you!
**Yes, I know as a NEW GRAD I should be thankful for ANY job! Just looking for advice specific to my question. Thank you!**
Absolutely! I was offered a "weekend option" position as a new grad. I had never heard of such a thing. I absolutely love it and find it difficult to consider moving to any other unit if I can't secure the same weekend option position. I work Saturday and Sunday only, 7AM-7pm and get paid for 35 hours per week with full medical benefits. I do not get called in for extra shifts, but the option to work extra shifts if I want. The downside is that I only get four days off per year, so I must choose them carefully.
Oooh - I love the sound of this - that would work perfectly for me. Quick question - if you desired to take of additional time (let's say you really fancied a 3 week trip to Europe, for example) - could you take that time off unpaid?
I am not saying the staff is limited because staff they are not available but because there is only few rooms running over the weekend. Most OR's do not do scheduled cases on the weekend and if they do it is a limited number compared to Mon-Fri schedule.
The OR is one of those rare nursing jobs where the bulk of the hours are of the dayshift variety. Dayshift is also where you will find your resources: the manager, specialty facilitators, larger number of anesthesia providers/circulators/scrub staff, company reps to help with new products or troubleshoot equipment. Weekends, evenings, and nights those resources are much less if present at all. Depending on the facility (trauma vs non-trauma, size, etc) nights and weekends might not even be staffed- it may be covered by those working dayshift hours on call.
Agree with the consensus that weekends and nights in the OR are not a good setting for the new grad. The staff during those hours need to be able to depend on their experience.
I fully agree with Rose_Queen on this. Unless you are properly trained and have experience of at least one year under your belt, I would consider a day shift position until you are better able to handle things that come with being alone in the OR on nights/weekends.
I am in Florida and have not seen a new graduate OR weekend only position. The normal routine for new grads wanting to work in the OR is Periop101 which is a three month didactic course followed by 6-9 months of residency. This includes shadow call and rotating through various specialties so you aren't oblivious to a case you may see on the weekend. The normal schedule for this is usually Mon-Fri 7-3 with weekends off until you are done with residency or you are assigned cases solo. If your hospital is running elective cases on Saturdays, which is what one of the facilities I work for is doing also, then you may have more resources and be okay, but again this is just from my experience.
Basically, after 3 or 5pm is when call-teams take over to relieve the normal "9-5ers" in the OR. In my facility this is when the OR Pharmacy closes, team coordinators leave for the day/weekend, and there is also maybe 1 front OR desk person/RN who is keeping up with tasks that need to be handled to preserve the OR's function to the next day when full service is in effect. So, if you are normally scheduled on a weekend you may or may not even be in cases and instead doing the normal maintenance tasks of the OR, or, depending on if you work at a trauma facility or not, you may be the first on the scene in an urgent/emergent case and you would really need to pull from your experience and resources to make quick critical decisions for your patient.
With all that being reiterated, I have recently picked up a weekend only position in a level 2 Trauma OR. I have 2 years of OR circulating/scrub experience in CV/CT surgery and another year in ambulatory surgery center where there has been a wide range of pace in cases. It is 7-3pm with no call and no additional shift requirements. These jobs are out there, but again, for a new grad I would really be careful. Your license is important and you worked hard for it.
The schedule you describe is like a modified Baylor, named after somebody named Baylor I'm sure, lol. That schedule is working double shifts every Saturday and Sunday, so 32 hours scheduled but it is paid at 40 hours. None of our hospitals hire that schedule anymore and only one nursing home that I am aware of still offers it as an option. I don't mind working weekends and an option to have every Monday through Friday off would be intriguing, but then having every single weekend committed to work would be difficult for most people.
SheriffLauren
92 Posts
It depends on the facility you apply to. my first job didn't let newgrads work nights, my second job hired new grads almost only to nights.
as for working only weekends i haven't worked anywhere with that option unless you worked per diem