Registered Nurses Beware: This is not the job you're looking for.
Pros
New facility, new equipment, new computers, nice rooms.
Cons
No breaks, poor compensation, poor management, knee-jerk reactive policies, overburdening nurses. Horrible tracking of acuity; our med/surg floor was regularly assigned patients that should have been in stepdowns. We had constant rapid responses because of this, because asking a supervisor to move them never worked; they'd rather argue with you or tell you to convince the doctor for a transfer order. Breaks are never a guarantee, even lunch breaks. Only techs get guaranteed breaks, because they're part of a union. We would have to carry 6 patients with high acuities with no breaks, and then get in trouble if we had overtime, even incremental overtime. We were threatened with layoffs if the overtime didn't stop, so many nurses had to chart or do patient care off the clock in order to keep their jobs. You have to travel with every patient that leaves the floor (Ie, xray, MRI, CT, stress test, etc) because even though our transporters are BLS certified, one time a patient coded during transport. This is just one example of the knee-jerk reactive policies put in place. When you have six patients, this sort of thing takes time away from your other patients, your ability to finish patient care and documentation, and puts everyone at risk.
