Working on weekends!

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Hi, I will be graduating ASN school this year and long story short, I do not want to work weekends... Now before you jump down my throat I didn't say I will not work weekends. I am in the Navy reserves and average 1-2 weekends gone per month. I have a 3 year old and a 5 year old and do not want to miss out on everything, I know I will miss out on somethings though! (I have been on three 8 month deployments in the last 8 years). Here is the tricky part, I want to pursue my BSN and my dream is to become a Nurse Practitioner one day. I know I need valuable working experience to be the best Nurse I can be. My wife and I have already talked about it and worst case, we understand I may be gone on every weekend for a couple years! What type of unit do I apply to work to get the best experience without working weekends? Thanks in advance!

Specializes in school nurse.

This may seem weird, but if time is that important to you, don't work as a nurse while you pursue the BSN. Do something else with a more family-friendly schedule. (On top of your reserves gig, that is.)

Are you in a medical specialty in the Navy?

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Some great suggestions here. I'm going to throw in federal corrections. They give nice benefits/pay packages to vets and while they prefer weekends, in some areas they need nurses so bad you can talk them into mon-fri.

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You chose a career in a 24 hour business, so not only will you most likely be working weekends, you'll be doing nights/holidays too. Options have been listed jobs that are most likely M-F but most are not appropriate for new grads.

The good thing is that nursing gave me the best schedule for raising small kids. Look for 12 hour shifts that will give you the most days off with your family.

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Specializes in Dialysis.

You don't specify what type of nursing you're interested in or which type of NP program you're aiming for, so I'm going to suggest outpatient dialysis.

Clinics have a Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday group of patients and a Monday, Wednesday, Friday group of patients. So, you never work Sundays. Some clinics have staff who rotate and some have staff that work just MWF.

Dialysis can be a great area to work in if you're interested in chronic disease management. You also learn a lot of skills which are transferable to acute care if you decide to go that route as well.

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Specializes in Cardiac Stepdown, PCU.

The only real advice I have is to be sure you find out what the specific weekend requirements are to whatever hospital or unit you are applying to, when you apply. Don't go by what is on the job posting.

When I applied to the place I am now, it listed "Every other weekend" as a requirement. After I was hired, I found out this wasn't necessarily true. The requirement was 5 weekend shifts per 6 week scheduling period. I thought that was great. When I asked what counted as weekend shifts, I was told Friday, Saturday. So I had to schedule myself 5 shifts that fell on either Friday, or Saturday. After I did my first scheduling period, I also found out that the unit had Sunday/Monday requirements, and that I was required to work 4 shifts in a 6 week period. I was actually annoyed by this, because it wasn't in my contract and isn't policy, but "unit policy".

Good luck to you.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med/Surg, ICU Stepdown.

If you are interested in eventually becoming a family practice NP or anything related to community health/outpatient I would suggest working in a community health center. Schedule is usually Mon to Fri, where I used to work we did one half day Saturday per month. If you want to be an outpatient NP working as a primary care nurse will give you more relevant experience than hospital nursing. Good luck! I worked as a nurse in a primary care/urgent care community clinic for 3 years, message me if any questions I am happy to help

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Find a hospital that lists positions for weekend nurses because those ones usually have some spots where nurses don’t work weekends. I worked for a year of med-surg on days with no weekends at all. It was nice!

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Oh and many surgery jobs you usually have less weekends but you will have call.

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Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.

Prioritize what is most important to you.

Do you need acute care experience? What is the job market like in your area? If you want to be an FNP, you may not need acute care experience. Home health may be a good option for you and you may not have to work weekends.

If you are looking to work inpatient, your chances of finding a no weekends job goes way down.

Where I live, there are some new grad residency programs where you start off not working weekends and only day shift so that you get the benefit of having full staff there. But once you are off residency you are definitely working some weekends. The last hospital I worked in had a union and all full time RNs worked every third weekend. All part time RNs worked every other weekend, and this was regardless of seniority. Look around at the standard in hospitals near you.

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On 3/14/2019 at 7:38 AM, RNperdiem said:

The jobs that don't require weekends generally are non-bedside positions like nurse educators, clinic, and outpatient surgery. These positions won't give you the experience you are looking for if you want to do NP.

How is outpatient surgery not "bedside" nursing? How is this not "experience"? I circulate in an outpatient surgery center. Not only do I do the patient pre-op work and actual physical prep, I also recover them.

What I do agree with is that I probably wouldn't have been hired for the position if not for my years of hospital experience, but that's because none of it was in OR. They felt confident training me, knowing that I'd worked ICU and cardiac stepdown for years, so they figured I'd catch on quickly and had the proper foundation of nursing.

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On 3/14/2019 at 7:59 AM, Emergent said:

Out patient surgery? Doctors office? OR?

BTW, your kids are at a perfect age to work weekends since school isn't neccessary at that young age. You can spend lots of time with them!

I worked every weekend 12 hour shifts until my child was in 1st grade. I then worked every other weekend three 12s until 3rd grade. I had time with her during the week and she was raised by her parents instead of day care since her dad was off every weekend.

I now work M-F, normal business hours and have LESS time with both child and spouse. I’m also a lot more tired.

Working on the weekend isn’t the worst thing in the world and sometimes may work out better than you expect. The only way to know for sure is if you try it out and see if it works for you. I wouldn’t toss the idea entirely though until you’ve given it a shot.

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On 3/14/2019 at 7:53 AM, PubSub said:

Hi, I will be graduating ASN school this year and long story short, I do not want to work weekends... Now before you jump down my throat I didn't say I will not work weekends. I am in the Navy reserves and average 1-2 weekends gone per month. I have a 3 year old and a 5 year old and do not want to miss out on everything, I know I will miss out on somethings though! (I have been on three 8 month deployments in the last 8 years). Here is the tricky part, I want to pursue my BSN and my dream is to become a Nurse Practitioner one day. I know I need valuable working experience to be the best Nurse I can be. My wife and I have already talked about it and worst case, we understand I may be gone on every weekend for a couple years! What type of unit do I apply to work to get the best experience without working weekends? Thanks in advance!

I pray this works out for you. I been a nurse for over 10 years and I still work weekends and nights.

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