hi-- whats a reasonable starting hourly wage for RN with 7 yrs med surg experience??... just left 28/hr in hospice..and now a dialysis clinic is offering me 24/hr... this seems REALLY low.. midwest large town.... ty.. plz reply to falon7@aol.com
SavvyRN44 wrote:hi-- whats a reasonable starting hourly wage for RN with 7 yrs med surg experience??... just left 28/hr in hospice..and now a dialysis clinic is offering me 24/hr... this seems REALLY low.. midwest large town.... ty.. plz reply to falon7@aol.com
Depends. Are they the only gig in town. Then there is no competition. Actually they'd rather pay a travel nurse $$$$$$ if they can get away with it. No hassle. I believe they break even because they don't have to pay the other half of FICA, medical bennies, 401k, education bennies, dental etc.
And if I can say so myself they get some pretty darn good nurses.
Over the years I've seen it time and time again. They hire 3 people and MAY BE 1 will stay. Dialysis is a different style of nursing, many nurses can't hack it. Plain and simple. There is alot of critical thinking to dialysis. You have no back up. The nurse is it. No RT's,many times no CM, you are running the show. You might have another nurse to fall back on but she might have less experience than you do. And it's physically demanding. You don't sit much. Many times you have no secretary. And you put in all your orders everyday. And try to keep up with 80-100 patients.
Techs usually stay with it for a long time and many nurses have a difficult time going to a tech for advice on a patient. The techs know the patients well.
Many people think we only deal with the kidneys. The kidneys do more than just remove toxins and fluid. They are involved in b/p regulation,immune activity,anemic status, bone regulation,etc.
You have to fuss with catheters, use Activase,troubleshoot fistulas, fool around with dry weights etc. Lots of critical thinking.
I personally love dialysis. I've been in it since 1987. And I'm still learning. We actually dialyze of O2 and therefore most patients should be on O2 during treatment.
Well, I'll shut up for now. As I said in the beginning if there is no other company doing dialysis in your area there is no competition and they won't pay that much. Now if it were me. I wouldn't work for that money. But they don't want to put out too much in the beginning because so few people can even make it through the orientation. You either love dialysis or you hate it.
:luck: