staff issues

[urol12]

I would like to thank the webmaster for this new forum. I am an o.r. nurse with experience in a 14 room o.r. and a free standing surgery center. I would like to discuss issues,such as call-back, with other nurses in the country. I am in the south. Thanks for your time.[mover]Text[/move][mover]Text[/move]

[Aaron C.]

You're very welcome! We're glad to have you here. Hopefully, we'll get some more nurses in here to converse with you.

Don't abandon us!!!!!!! We're signing up tons of new members ever day from 8 different nursing websites and they can post from any of them. So...hang in there!

[SoldierNurse]

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urol12 said:
I would like to thank the webmaster for this new forum. I am an o.r. nurse with experience in a 14 room o.r. and a free standing surgery center. I would like to discuss issues,such as call-back, with other nurses in the country. I am in the south. Thanks for your time.[mover]Text[/move][mover]Text[/move]

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I'm here! I work in a 20 room OR suite that is expanding to 28 rooms. Lately, we have been required to sign up for four weekend slots & five weekday slots, of four hour increments, of call per monthly schedule. We have 30 mins. to arrive at the hospital, once called-in. While on call we get $2.00/hr & if called-in get time & half. Any other questions or comparisons? I look forward to your feed back.

I am an OR nurse and I have worked in many different settings as I travel. Currently in a small OR that has 4 rooms. They cannot keep people. Currently they are down to 1 full timer. Call here is as often as we want to take it but the OR director has to take call also...she is not paid extra...

[udali]

I am an OR nurse, and I have also worked many different settings. I am at a 9 room OR at the moment. I am expected to take one weekend call every 5 or 6 weeks. (that is 8hrs Fri,12 hours Sat, and 12 hours Sun.) But we have 3 different call teams, so if you are first call on Friday, you are a different call on Sat and Sun. We have to be ready to work within 30 mints of the call to come in, but it is a small town, so you have to work hard at taking more than 30 mints to get there.

[thor0216]

I'm still a nursing student at SFSU with a year left. I'm looking into different dept. Was just curious about several things regarding OR nursing. How does the on-call system work? What kind of salaries are people making? What exactly do you do on a normal shift? Anyway, these are some questions I have. Any kind of imput would be great.
Thanks

Where we are, a blank schedule and a blank call schedule are put out, and we are to fill it in or be arbitrarily assigned on a rotating basis. We sign up for either an entire weeknight, or for a 24 hour period on Sat. or Sun. There are usually enough "call hogs"to keep those who don't want call, safe from having to take very much of it. The time to get to the hospital is 1 hour (big city), and the pay is 3 dollars and change per hour. There is weekend, evening, and night differential available on hours worked, in addition to the overtime that it usually is. We make well above the national average, with the OR getting specialty pay, plus the twice yearly raises (market value increase, and evaluation raise). There is also a yearly holiday bonus in Dec., based on customer satisfaction feedback per surveys. We do exceptionally well on these. The OR presently consists of 13 rooms in the Main, 8 rooms in the Ambulatory, and two for hearts (all in different locations throughout the hospital complex). After being in a 25 room facility down south, this place seemed like quite the upgrade, as staff here is valued more highly, and the nurse managers tend to advocate for their staff. At the former facility, we were forced to take overtime two days a week, even if you only worked 3 days per wk, and you had to stay until they told you. The days a 3:00 person on forced overtime would be there until well after the 5 or 7:00 (scheduled to leave regularly) personnel were gone were not often, but were often enough to bother most persons significantly. The management there was into maintaining the status quo without the surgeons having to bend, and often that meant that compromise and poor advocacy for the nursing staff was the order of the day.

Our 22 suite OR is considering clinical ladders. Does anyone have any experience or ideas? I do not want to "reinvent the wheel". Any names of a facility using ladders in the OR would be greatly appreciated.

I work at a hospital that has 2 level of clinical ladders.
We have a variety of criteria that must be met for the 2 steps. Clinical Ladder Step 3 involves achieving 3 of the competencies and Clinical Step 4 involves meeting 5 of the criteria.
They include
Acting as Charge nurse, Pursing higher education BSN or MSN,
holding 2 advanced certifications, Community Service, Belonging to a hospital committee, active participation in a department project( different from what is expected of regular staff nurse),
It is also mandatory that you give 3 inservices in your department.
It is pretty easy to get if you are active in your profession. I do n't understand why more nurses do not take part in our department.

I am an OR nurse, have worked for 30 years as an OR nurse.
On call works very differently in many hospitals. Some hospitals will pay you half time for every hour on call and double time when you get called in. This is the best, unfortunately this is a dying entity. Now most hospitals will pay you a shift minimum, or a small hourly stipend and then time and a half when you get called in. Most require 30 minute door to door. Some 20 minutes. Most call is mandatory of every department,fortunately you will have some nurses that want a lot and some who don't want any. Most of the time it is easy to give away. Holidays are most always covered on call, except in hospitals with trauma service designation. It is mandatory for these to have in house staff 24 hours a day.