Career Corner >> Nursing Specialization >> Why do most RNs leave Long-Tern Care facility when offered a job in an Acute Hospital?
Why do most RNs leave Long-Tern Care facility when offered a job in an Acute Hospital?
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Posted over 3 years ago Why are there so many LVN in long-term care facility and more RN in Acute hospital? Why do RNs prefers to work in an acute hospital than nursing homes? Please be honest with your answers? Thank you! |
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| Posted over 3 years ago More money (1) Less bullshit and drama (2) Experience (3) Less incompetence (4) Working in a nursing home is like being a part of a soap opera that you never wanted to star in. Plus, benefits and $$$ is almost always better, and the experience in acute care is valuable to essential depending on who you ask. My experience working in nursing home is that a really disproprotionate number of LPNs/RNs here are incompetent to the point of nonfunctionality. A good nurse in a nursing home is almost like a diamond in the rough. Hospitals, OTOH, just don't tolerate that level of crappiness. YOu would be fired and lose your license sooner or later. On the plus side, it is a relatively low stress nursing job, and I love hanging out with the residents. They are so damn cute. The benefit to working with so many shitty nurses is that administration will love the crap out of you, if you happen to be one of the decent nurses who could actually function in acute care. It's sort of like standing next to an ugly person makes you look gorge. -RN working in a nursing home with <1 year total experience. |
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| Posted over 3 years ago Money. I work in a Texas prison. This prison is a combined psych and medical facility. The medical staffing is covered by a contract with Texas Tech University. Despite the fact TTU has a nursing program that offers BSN, MSN and Doctorate of Nursing (not a Ph. D.) and no LVN/LPN program, virtually all the staff they send to the prison is LVN. Money. Nursing homes charge up the kazoo for resident stays but pay little to nothing for staff. The patients are not acute as those are quickly sent by ambulance to the local ER. In essence you are babysitting with little medical care rendered. Many are "senile", to use a lump non-medical term, and are a pain in the butt to their family. So granny is addled and sent off to live with other addled persons. Of late more cases than Alzheimer's are shipped off to these long term facilities. But compensation is below that of acute care facilities and thus less trained and lower paid staff. Every specialty has its adherents. God Bless those who want to work with long term patients and I sincerely mean that. |
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| Posted over 3 years ago Well in my state it is darn difficult to get a job in a anyother setting as an LPN. If you are lucky enought to get hired on a t the hospital is a $5 an hour paycut. Noonie......The soap opera comment is so true, but the other? Really? So there are no "crappy" nurses working ANYWHERE else but LTC? I know that EVERY place has atleast one "crappy" nurse. As for me, LTC is nice, I love the residents and I love doing what little treatments we get to do. I HATE THE PILL PASS! It is the absolute worst. I love the hands on stuff more. And everyday I feel like I am losing a little more of the skills I am not utilizing there. So in answer, as soon as I finish school.....I"M OUT! "Softly. deftly, music shall caress you. Feel it, hear it, secretly possess you...." |
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| Posted over 3 years ago I'll second Nursejenny1310 on the crappy nurses being everywhere. I can list a litany of incidents by experienced RNs in acute settings. In ICU, ER, OR, Peds and dialysis. If your head is in your colon in chronic long term care it will be in acute care. Maybe more so as the pressure and demands increase. But face it - most of us work to make a living. You go where the money is. |
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| Posted over 3 years ago Nursejenny1310 says ...
Hi Jenny, There are crappy nurses in all settings of work that's just human nature.. but it seems like bad nurses can aggregate in nursing homes and are NEVER face administrative correction, and cause a lot of problems for their coworkers and it just isn't fair. Administration only cares about bodies behind the cart, and they know the "better" nurses will follow up and fix all the errors. I work with many great nurses, BTW. But I also work with some bad ones that would never last in acute. I think it is fair to say that there is a greater percentage of head-to-wall inducing nurses here. I like LTC though. I like it a lot. I am torn because I am a RN and I feel like I should get some acute care experience but I feel like this is my niche. I really enjoy taking care of my residents and trying to make things better for them. I don't like the whole "welcome to our hotel" show and dance involved in subacute/acute care. Because of how profit driven acute care is, nurses have to be like entertainers and wait staff. Screw that. The elderly and demented are more appreciative, and that's nice. A day ago one of my residents said to his family "she helps me" (pointing to me). Cute. While I find treatments interesting I can't say it is my favorite thing. Regarding money... yep they certainly pay more in acute care. But I enjoy working in LTC, and it is a much lower stress job. And it's not like the pay is bad. I still make a whole lot more than most people. I almost make $30/h. My cost of living is real low heh. It is also more rewarding, because of the whole interacting with residents every day and getting to observe their progress. Acute seems like a revolving door that demands more always. |
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| Posted over 3 years ago I made decent money in LTC. As an RN Charge nurse, it was tough constantly calling family to report falls, that are in my opinion preventable. The government limits such stupid things as siderails being up on a bed, it is considered a restrait. If I give an Ativan, it could be considered a chemical restraint. If I put a lap-buddy on someone in a wheelchair it could be a restraint. ongoing ongoing, even with an MD order. I had to call ems and two different families on one night shift, to transport two different falls (one fractured her hip, and the other fractured her arm in two places). Both of these patients had Alz. The other thing I didn't like, was all the drama. It's a fricken soap opera, and staff all have their steak knives out ready to carve one another up. I'm much happier in a hospital, where such drama is NOT allowed. |
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| Posted over 3 years ago
I SO agree!!! I cant tell you how many times I have been asked by the DON to "check and make sure so and so did this right". I always get the "since your so flexible, would you mind swithching carts?" There is plenty of crap, and yes it's all about warm bodies. How many nurses do you really need to work there that the DON continually says they don't trust them moving to a diff cart or working short, which I have to do ALL the time. And nobody even pays attention to what they are doing anymore? THey just pop pills and shove down throats in a rush to get to the break room and sit for an hour. For all three breaks. And then they bitch at me if I go smoke more than 3 times in my shift. Mind you I go for about 5 min each time. Grrr These ladies really only work for about 5 hours per shift? But they "have been there for 15 years" so nobody says boo. wheew what a rant......sorry guys! "Softly. deftly, music shall caress you. Feel it, hear it, secretly possess you...." |
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| Posted over 3 years ago In general, everyone here is right - it's the money. In NJ, about ten dollars an hour difference (LPN = $15, RN = $25). Of course, that's on the average. |
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| Posted over 3 years ago I,m an LPN in LTC and I can tell you there are as many crappy RN,s who are just working for a paycheck as there are LPN's. I love the interaction with the people and I think I was called to where I currently work. It's a small facility and I know 75% of the admissions before they come to us. Most of them I have known since I was born. I feel like I am giving back to a generation who gave all of themselves to supply the technology and ease with which we live our lives. Most people don't think about that though on a whole. They see a crazy old lady who has dementia. I see a young mother who has grown old as I will one day do. Time passes and we will all be there hoping to have a very competent nurse taking care of us no matter what our code status |
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| Posted over 3 years ago Well I am an RN and I just recently quit a long term care facility because the drama, backstabbing, and laziness were too much for me. I was the clinical manager and basically did everything from working as a CNA, being on the cart, and right up to filling out the MDS'. The other RN's were incompitent and had worked there 15+ years they didnt feel the need to actually do anything but sit in the office and gossip all day long. I have vowed to never work in another nursing home as long as I am a nurse. I am currently looking for a job at either a clinic or hospital. Not for more money, for my sanity! |
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| Posted over 3 years ago I will say my number 1 reason for wanting a hospital job over LTC is I would spend from 7am-1030 doing my 8am med pass, I would chart, sometimes eat, and get back to start my noon med pass. I felt like all I was doing was passing pills to people. I felt I was not a nurse, just a pill passer. I also agree with the fact that it is very frustrating to spend your few spare minutes to call families, and write incident reports up about a fall that could have easily been prevented with a lap buddy. I love elderly, I want to be a hospice nurse, but I do not like the soap opera of LTC, or the non-stop pill passing. YES, money is also an important factor, but that would not be my number one reason. |
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| Posted over 3 years ago I was an LPN for almost 20 years when I got my BSN. As an LPN I looked down on nursing homes and said I would never work in one EVER. This was based on a bad first job experience I had as a brand new LPN right out of school. My first job was as a treatment nurse in a LTC facility. The place was brand spanking new, but run horribly. I quit after 3 months and never looked back. I was lucky that in the late '80's in New Orleans, the nursing shortage hit the city hard, and suddenly hospitals that snubbed LPN's a few years before began to hire them. I was working in an acute care hosp in Baton Rouge when I got my BSN. I thought I wouls just saty put. Unfortunately, the ER (where I had been working for 3 years while in school) had no day shift slots, and I didn't want to do nights. I was offered a PACU position. The pay was an insult. I went from making $16/hr to $18.50/hr. That was going from an LPN to BSN. I was pissed. I ended up taking a management job as an ADON in a LTC facility fro $23/hr. The place was a dump. I was recruited away to another more reputable and much better run LTC facility. I can remember driving up to the place and telling my husband on my cell, that I'd give this LTC thing one more try. My pay was now $25/hr. I ended up loving it. I was promoted quicly, and the administration was a good group of people who truly cared about the residents and their care. I know I was probably in a very unique place. We certainly had our share of drama, but we stuck together as a team, and felt as if one of our Grandparents had passed away when a resident died. My husband got a job offer here in Houston, which caused me to have to leave that job. I've regretted it ever since. I moved here thinking I'd stay in LTC, but the facilities here in Texas are horrible.I ended up getting back into acute care. I would say that the way a facilty is run would determine why RN's don't stay in LTC. I was not treated with any respect, nor my opinon valued in the LTC facilities here. This was quite a switch from what I had left. So, I jsut went back to the hospitals. Yes, the pay was better also.
Claire Kruszka |
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| Posted over 3 years ago I work in long term care now, and have been working in LTC for about 2 years. Everyone is right, there is crappy nurses there, aides that don't care (just a paycheck), passing meds all the time. Loss of skills. After working in a prison for 1.5 years out of nursing school, I miss the acute care that you get to do. Miss the things that you got to do. Lab draws, IV's, and everything else. LTC is just like you are babysitting. You always have to send them out for proper care. I am going for my RN at this time, and when that is done, back to the prison or to a hospital. I do love the LTC pateints, and will miss them, they become your family. |
