I work on the surgical floor. These are my frustrations: Expensive, not- so-competitive benefits (my health insurance rates tripled when I went to part time- $266 per pay period) management does not listen, Med-surg charge nurses take up to 4 patients at night, day charges can take 1 patient during the day. I've been fighting this a long time, this is dangerous and defeats the purpose of a charge nurse. You also have to be on a committee so once a month on your day off you will be expected to attend a committee meeting and report back to your unit about it.
You will be pressured to get certification in whatever your specialty is, but there is no pay increase associated with it.
The only way to really increase your pay is to "level up" which is a lot of work, and only applies to university hospital. If you leave to go to another hospital, you lose your level 3 or 4 title.
Not worth it in my opinion. To be totally transparent: I've been an RN for 3 years and I make $26.30 base pay. I started there as a new grad.
University loves to brag about how they are the best hospital, but the way they run their hospital does not reflect this. New grad RNs can expect to rotate night and day shifts for the first couple of years. They got rid of their weekend incentive agreement a couple years ago, which offered a bonus for RNs that signed contracts to work weekends. They just nixed the night contract too. This is a huge pay cut for RNs who work exclusively nights. For full time RNs, this is a $4000 pay cut per year. Management says they "might" increase the base pay, but I doubt it.
Recently, some senior nurses who had been there 6 plus years who hadn't rotated in years were told it they were not a level 3 or higher, they were required to work one night shift/month. We've had a lot of turnover recently as you can imagine.
Overall, I feel like I'm continuously expected to do more with less (I know this is universal in healthcare) however, I have friends who work at other hospitals in the Denver metro area, and when I tell them about my situation at work, they are shocked, and tell me their hospital does not operate like that.
University has high expectations of their RNs, but don't offer incentives and pay that match this. They treat their RNs like they are disposable and in some instances I've seen them push senior nurses out the door. Not a great work environment. Budget always trumps patient safety.
