A friend sent an email this morning saying that she’d received an email from the State telling her she’s a licensed RN. She assumes that means she passed her NCLEX, which she took on Thursday.
She’s applied for a job at the local hospital in the (very) small town she’s living in, and no doubt she’s received guidance as to how to find work. But I’m curious, and maybe I can pass on leads if I come across any: What kind of job can a newly-licensed RN get?
FWIW, she intends to pursue a BSN while working, and is seriously thinking about an MSN after that.
I chatted with my friend today, and she has an application in at a hospital. If I understood her correctly, a nurse she worked with/under there asked her if she’s applied. It’s possible they have three openings. She also will apply for positions at two other places. So it sounds like she has the employment search covered fairly well.
A newly licensed RN usually gets a job as a…wait for it…an RN. They are always in demand and despite the habitual complaints about low pay, they are generally compensated quite well by most standards and are the ones most directly in charge of patient care. Doctors fear a good RN. They don’t have to do hospital based work though. They can also work in nursing homes or do home based care. I am male but I have thought seriously about doing it myself. She shouldn’t have much problem finding a job although she can specialize for higher pay and responsibility later. If she can’t find a hospital based job, she could look for a job as a visiting nurse to take care of sick people that live at home.
She should apply for any nursing jobs that interests her- hospital, clinic, city health department, etc.
The conventional wisdom is/was that new nurses should do a year in a hospital based medical-surgical unit in order to get comfortable with common nursing tasks such as head to toe assessments, IV starts and maintenance, dressing changes, etc., before picking an area of interest. I never did this and went almost straight into OB-GYN. My hospital hires new graduates for L&D, which I understand is not so common as other places prefer some experience in other fields first.
New nurses usually have at least some idea of what area of health care interests them (geriatric v. pediatrics? OB-GYN or hospice?) or what kind of hours they want (night shift, anyone?). Clinics are good for day ‘normal hours’ kinds of people. Most hospitals I know about only offer 12 hour shifts, 2-3 days a week. 12 hours shifts are often a 14+ hour day, what with travel time and shift changes, which can be tiring.
Where ever she gets hired, she should have a clearly defined training period where a more experienced nurse will assist her until she is functioning on her own.
Good luck to her! Nursing can be a very satisfying and rewarding career choice.
She has expressed an interest in hospice care and geriatrics. (Sounds pretty depressing to me, but that’s just me.) She said the job she’s already applied for is eight hours a day, five days a week. She said that nurses tend to transfer to positions that have 36/3 shifts so that they can have four days off a week. She said that she prefers eight-hour days. The other two places she mentioned are closer to her interests. I think one of them is a hospice. The pay is lower, but she might prefer the job.
Since she used to be a helicopter pilot, she might like being a flight nurse. (Heck, I wouldn’t mind being a medevac pilot.) Lots of fatal crashes a couple of years ago, but after flying in Iraq it wouldn’t worry her.
When the economy is bad, it’s actually often tough to find a job as an RN–at least the job of your preference. It’s common for the RN to be the backup income for a family.
The idea that “doctors fear a good RN” is ridiculous.
Shag…why bother to mention the male thing? I am a nurse who happens to be male, and it irks me to no end how people still feel the need to say “male nurse.” This isn’t dogging you out, but I’m making it as an example. I see it in newpaper stories and hear it on TV. And above all, it seems that people assume that all male nurses are homosexual. I am straight, and happlily married with a beautiful daughter. This is 2010. People need to lose their narrow viewpoints. Nursing is hard work, but the pay is decent, and you are pretty much guaranteed a job anywhere you go, as long as you’re licensed in that state. Try saying that for most jobs in today’s economy.
but she’s having a heck of a time finding a position that will take her with no experience. She was hoping for a part-time or per diem job, but now we’re considering seeking full-time, if only to get her career jump-started already.
I think in the unlikely event of me becoming a nurse (stomach too weak to handle it), hospice care would actually be a strong contender for me. I was very strongly struck by the amazing support we received from hospice nurses when a family member was dying. While the overall situation is sad, nurses can make a huge difference in supporting the patient and their loved ones, which I would imagine would be satisfying. Also, hospice nurses generally get to spend time caring for patients in a much less hectic environment than many hospital wards.
My friend called tonight. She has accepted a job at a nursing/assisted-care place. She starts Thursday, but there’s a nurse’s meeting Monday and another orientation thing she has to do Tuesday or Wednesday. She said the job is ‘skilled care’, which is different from ‘long-term care’. I think the deal is that people will go to this place after they no longer need to be in the hospital, but they still need care (finishing their meds, healing) before they can go home. 1800-0600, three nights a week. She starts working on her BSN 11 October.
Night shift nursing can give you breast cancer. The high numbers are unexplained. Florescent lights, circadian rhythm,stress, whatever. I’m not prone to such hysteria generally, but my wife got it after 5 years of night shift. For whatever that’s worth. She would tell you herself, but she’s dead.
Small towns can be harder, larger areas, all you have to do is walk into the front lobby and nurse recruiters drop out of the ceiling and offer you a signing bonus, or handcuff themselves to you and threaten to drag you to the roof and jump if you don’t sign.
Ok maybe not quite that dramatic but many large areas offer significant signing bonuses for promised duration of employment. Once you have a few years under your belt, pretty much anyplace will take you minimal questions asked beyond ID and RN Licence. Pay can also ramp up pretty quickly for a new hire.
IIRC a doper I know was hired at like $18-19/hr while waiting for her NCLEX appointment under something called an interim permit. Once she passed, that bumped up a $2-3/hr. Once probationary periods ended etc another raise, At about 4 years it was like $27/hr 36 hours a week, working 3 days a week, 12 hour shifts. As I understand it, that is pretty typical.
My friend says the hospital starts new-hires at $26/hour. She’ll be getting $28/hour at the nursing home, and thinks they offered her more than usual because so many people only work there until there’s an opening at the hospital. (She likes the nursing home, and doesn’t want to work at the hospital. We’ll see if that changes. )
Yeah, as a doctor, I promise you that I appreciate the good nurses who know what they’re doing. The ones I fear are the ones who barely know what they are doing and either keep paging me for really stupid stuff or could possibly harm my patients. The idea that doctors and nurses have an adversarial relationship is not always true.
Update: My roomie (she moved up) has been here about five and a half weeks. She came home in shock on Tuesday and announced she has a job. It’s a skilled nursing position at a rehab place. She went in, filled out an application, spoke with the nursing director, and got hired on the spot. She started orientation on Thursday, and went in yesterday too. Working the evening shift next week.
If that doesn’t work out there’s always the US Army Nurse Corps. Base pay is about the same as civilian jobs but there’s all kinds of bonuses and special pay, plus free additional training.
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