Pros
Some of the staff are amazing. Specific units become like a family and you develop great friendships. Then everyone finds better jobs with better pay, benefits, schedules, and administrators. Great night time house supervisors. Fantastic hospitalists and physicians (when they can keep them).
Cons
Poor administrative staff. Poor pay. Little room to grow. No preferential treatment for seniority. Expensive insurance. Very difficult to plan vacations due to staffing issues and schedules. You never know where or who you're working with no matter what unit you were hired to work. Floating is mandatory even if you havent been trained. Pt advocacy is little to none. 12 hour shifts but only get 8 hour holiday pay. Pt to staff ratio is dangerous. Security is not actual security. No appreciation for doing the job correctly. No reimbursement for training new staff. Housekeeping is a joke. Unable to keep unit physicians due to more focus on numbers and money and less focus on giving pts care they need to be discharged appropriately. Doctors leave before their contracts are finished. If you get a raise (no guarantee of annual raise) it's a tiny percentage. It's so small you wouldn't notice you got one. Cannot complain or report anything in house. You will be treated as an outcast if you do. Nothing will be done about it, either. Old building with bad plumbing. Smells like septic if not then it smells like a skunk got in the air ducts or smells like the cow farm next door. Rude staff who do not care about your comfort or safety. Prepare to sleep on the floor with your own linens and pillows if theres a storm. Admin will only offer to feed daytime staff if snowed in, bring your own food if you work nights. You never have an entire holiday off. If you're scheduled off on Christmas, you have to work Christmas Eve. The same with New Years and Thanksgiving/Black Friday. When you get shoved on another unit, nobody will help you or offer assistance. They treat you like the plague for helping them. Other units watch you on security cams so they can take advantage of a lull and have you do their work for them. Its creepy.
