Which is the better route to take?

If you have a real love for the elderly,go ltc. It is a good idea to get all skills you can from hospital down pat though. You do need a great sense of humor and alot of patience to work ltc. burn out can happen too quickly sometime.

I remember reading this last year when I was in the LVN program, but I can't quote where I saw it. Levels of pay (higher to lower) were:

1) contract / travel nurse

2) LTC nurse

3) hospital nurse

4) clinic nurse

Travel nurses have alot of things to deal with, from lousy assignments to unsafe settings (though they can also get great assignments)

LTC nurses generally have high patient ratios (I had 16-32), but the patients tend to be more stable. What I hated was the high volume of charting these pts required.

Hospital nurses, it seems to me, have more flexible work schedules and better perks (PTO, benefits), but they also to deal with patients that can turn quickly.

Clinic nurses often have close-to-stable M-F 8-5 hours (some exceptions, of course)

Though I'm sure others can add much more, I would say that the higher the pay, the higher the stress and less-than-favorable working conditions.