Posted in Nursing Jobs
A sort of “us” vs. “them” mentality takes hold when nurses from these two different employment settings takes place. Each feels they have the better of both worlds, but is one setting really more desirable than the other? Some very important and some lighthearted benefits apply to both places:
The hospital is a 24/7 world of patient care where you hope the cafeteria has something good available at the 2:00 a.m. grazing time. The private office may have a microwave and a refrigerator where you are actually able to sit down and eat, but then again the pizza place across the street makes a wicked Caesar salad. The hospital, if you don’t get your break, may offer a vending machine with trail mix or cold Pop-tarts. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Nursing Jobs
The permanent nursing position. The stuff that new grads dream of. But is the permanent position the one that will work best for you? A permanent nursing job brings steady work and steady pay with the option of full benefits. Holiday pay, medical benefits, vacation time add thousands of dollars worth of incentive to work full-time hours. Staff nurses are more visible to managers and directors and the chance for advancement is greater with a full-time schedule. A nurse knows her co-workers, is able to work as part of a team and has a voice in the unit policies and procedures. Some hospitals employ self-scheduling which adds greater flexibility in permanent nursing jobs. Patients benefit as well from the continuity of care that a regular staff member brings to their work. Even as a nurse in a private office is able to partake of these benefits.
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Posted in Nursing News
Long hailed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as a nationwide crisis in the making, we are in the middle of a nursing shortage. Or are we? According to the latest stats of March 6, 2009, 27,000 new healthcare jobs were made available in February and 681,000 jobs, in general, were lost. Some of the latter were nursing jobs.
One factor that the Labor Bureau sites for the nursing shortage is the lack of qualified nursing faculty members to teach new nurses, and one of the reasons for the shortage of faculty is low compensation. Nurse faculty members put their license at risk for every student when in the clinical setting. The student nurses operate under the faculty’s nursing license while they are on-site. Any mistakes made by the students are the responsibility of the faculty member. This requirement, combined with the low rate of pay for faculty members, makes teaching unattractive to many nurses. Without enough faculty to teach the programs, schools must turn away new applicants or place them on a year to two-year waiting list. Lower numbers of new grads means low numbers of future nurses.
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Posted in Travel Nursing
Many nurses seek employment with nurse staffing agencies as they have can more flexibility in how much they work and where they work. Many healthcare staffing agencies are the providers of choice for long-term care facilities when they are in a pinch during call-offs or as staff members leave their employment. The nurse functions as an employee of the staffing agency. The agency may offer full benefits, paid time off and a powerful advocacy for the nurse choosing to work with them. A major draw for working with an agency is that a nurse may be able to leave an assignment before the completion of an assignment if they find working conditions to be less than desirable. If a nurse is working in an area with an acute shortage of nurses, the wide availability of open nursing positions gives the nurse more options in choosing the places they work. If one position is no longer a viable place to work, there are plenty of other options.
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Posted in Per Diem Nursing
Per diem nursing jobs (or PRN nursing jobs) are a great draw for nurses. You can work your regular job and pick up a PRN job on the side as a way of making extra money. PRN jobs generally pay a more generous hourly wage than a staff position as PRN jobs usually do not carry any medical or paid time off benefits. The flexibility of a PRN job, whereby nurses can choose their own schedule, working as much or as little as they want during a month, offer a time management factor that is most advantageous to parents of young children, those wishing to keep their up their skills, or simply nurses who want a part-time option without adhering to a set schedule. Because of the infrequency of shifts worked, PRN nurses often find they are able to avoid unit politics and cliques which frequently overrun many units.
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