In weather emergencies I've heard of nurses working over 24 hours on the clock, though I'm pretty sure legally in the US they can't force us to work more than 16 hours straight. Apparently my company used to pay people for sleep time when they were forced to stay there, but that ended. Frankly the amount of people I know that have worked regularly 16 hours every day for as long as I've known them at work is somewhat scary. 12 hour shifts in the hospital are pushing it, but you're also getting 4 days off a week as a tradeoff.
though I'm pretty sure legally in the US they can't force us to work more than 16 hours straight
Unless your state licensing specifically precludes "mandatory overtime" from the definition of "patient abandonment," this is unfortunately not true. Check your state's rules here.
(I'm not a nurse, but my mom was, and I remember hearing about "patient abandonment " cases during Hurricane Katrina and being absolutely horrified at the way the system works.)
My understanding was mainly that they can keep you there especially during a crisis but otherwise can't, which is correct in my state, though there's no upper limit like others. Still interesting that a few months back my previous employer violated that law by forcing me to stay an hour over because they didn't have staffing when they didn't exhaust all options like the law states.
I would prefer the people giving me medical treatment be well rested. Where I am it'd my taxes paying for nurses and I'd really rather see them have decent lives and be in good shape to work while doing medicine than have an entirely pointless military. I'm Canadian, we can just use America's anyway
In weather emergencies I've heard of nurses working over 24 hours on the clock, though I'm pretty sure legally in the US they can't force us to work more than 16 hours straight. Apparently my company used to pay people for sleep time when they were forced to stay there, but that ended. Frankly the amount of people I know that have worked regularly 16 hours every day for as long as I've known them at work is somewhat scary. 12 hour shifts in the hospital are pushing it, but you're also getting 4 days off a week as a tradeoff.
Unless your state licensing specifically precludes "mandatory overtime" from the definition of "patient abandonment," this is unfortunately not true. Check your state's rules here.
(I'm not a nurse, but my mom was, and I remember hearing about "patient abandonment " cases during Hurricane Katrina and being absolutely horrified at the way the system works.)
My understanding was mainly that they can keep you there especially during a crisis but otherwise can't, which is correct in my state, though there's no upper limit like others. Still interesting that a few months back my previous employer violated that law by forcing me to stay an hour over because they didn't have staffing when they didn't exhaust all options like the law states.
I would prefer the people giving me medical treatment be well rested. Where I am it'd my taxes paying for nurses and I'd really rather see them have decent lives and be in good shape to work while doing medicine than have an entirely pointless military. I'm Canadian, we can just use America's anyway