Work per diem at hospital while working full time at current job? Is it possible?

[tenderfootjoe]

Hey all,

Im a fairly new nurse, have been at a family practice clinic for 1 year, started at LTC/rehab for 6 months before the clinic job. My area is extremely saturated with nurses and very few acute care positions, so I took what I could get for experience/income.

My question is, is it possible that a hospital would hire me per diem? How does the orientation work for someone who has never been in acute care? And would it be possible to keep my M-F clinic job and do orientation/per diem work at a hospital?

Thanks! :)

[PacoUSA, BSN, RN]

Nurses work FT jobs at one hospital and do per diem at another all the time, but from what I have seen they often come on board per diem with prior experience in the specialty they are per diem in. I cant see how a newbie to acute care can be oriented with such a sporadic schedule. I could be wrong though.

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[adventure_rn, MSN, NP]

Nurses work FT jobs at one hospital and do per diem at another all the time, but from what I have seen they often come on board per diem with prior experience in the specialty they are per diem in. I cant see how a newbie to acute care can be oriented with such a sporadic schedule. I could be wrong though.

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I agree with PacoUSA: working PRN with a full time job is doable, but I doubt that it would work out without acute care experience. I don't know a lot about LTC/rehab, but I'm guessing that the skill set would be pretty different from acute care, and that you'd need a solid orientation to be prepared to work independently. Here are a few of the barriers that come to my mind...

First, I'm not sure if a hospital would hire you PRN without acute care experience, especially if you're in a saturated area. Orienting nurses is expensive, as much as thousands of dollars (since the hospital is paying the salary of both a preceptor and preceptee); I'm not sure that they would be willing to invest that much time and money into a PRN employee.

Secondly, even if you can get an acute care PRN job, I think it would be hard to really learn the skills effectively if you're only doing the care/skills sporadically.

Finally, maybe it's just me, but I think that schedule would be really hard: M-F normal hours plus a 12 hour shift. Also, many hospitals require a week-long orientation for all employees, so you might have to take a week of vacation off of your clinic job simply to get the required orientation.

If you really want to get some acute care experience, I'd apply for acute care jobs and quit the clinic job once you have an offer. After you have some acute care experience, it would be a lot easier for you to transition back into outpatient nursing with a PRN acute job if you want it.

Best of luck!

[Clovery]

Coming from an area with a similar nursing job economy, it has been my experience that hospitals aren't hiring per diem employees who have no experience in acute care. For a new-to-acute care nurse, the orientation is generally at least 8 weeks on a full time schedule. Think about how long it would take just to orient you if you are only available one day per week.

I agree with the previous poster.... look for a full or part time hospital position and leave your current job when you find one. You could easily pick up a per diem position in LTC/rehab to supplement this once you are off orientation.

[NurseSpeedy, ADN, LPN, RN]

I agree with what others have said. Hospitals that hire per diem are looking for experienced nurses that have worked in the hospital setting recently. Without prior experience (and I would be surprised if a hospital would agree to this type of employment), you would most likely be putting both your license and your patient's safety at risk. Many places offer several weeks (6+) for an orientation for a FT employee that has not worked in an acute care setting. I cannot see a facility willing to invest resources to train someone extensively for only per diem work. Many times it's just a shift or two. These are also the positions that are utilized when the census/ratios are up so staffing usually isn't the greatest either.