This is a recent story I found over at medicalnewstoday.com and this is a study from the University Of Maryland School Of Nursing and they were looking at workplace conditions in magnet hospitals. Now, those of you that know probably already know this but magnet hospitals are facilities that have raised certain departments or perhaps the whole facility to a certain level of care expectation. Most often, they require nurses that work there to have BSNs in those departments that have the magnet status and they are constantly reviewing and raising educational concerns and information for increased and better patient care and patient outcomes. Great for the patients, but by just working at a magnet hospital, does that mean that your work conditions as a nurse are better? Is nurse staffing better? You’re working with a higher educated caliber of nurse, I want to say higher caliber in general because a Bachelor’s degree does not a fantastic nurse make automatically, but certainly a nurse with a higher level of education, higher understanding and perhaps a higher base of critical thinking. So, you have good patient care outcomes but what about good work environment?

What this study found was that just coz you work in a magnet hospital doesn’t mean that your working conditions are necessarily better, that this is really a separate management concern. Focusing on patient outcomes is all well and good but there are other things, other factors that contribute to workplace satisfaction and that’s what this particular article found out. Really, actually when you think about under those concerns, it’s not really that much of a surprise. Yes, you have a higher requirement for the nursing staff educationally but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you will also have better workplace conditions or better staffing. It doesn’t mean that its worse, doesn’t mean it’s better but definitely is not an indicator that if you work in a magnet facility that you’re going to enjoy your job better. You should look at all aspects of any employer. as we run into the beginning of the new fall semester, we have a lot of new nursing students coming in here and perhaps this is their final year, they’re going to be looking at jobs, perhaps you just passed your nursing boards, you’re a recent graduate and you’re looking at different facilities and where you’d like to work.

You should always ask some questions. I’ve done this in the past, you check over at nursingshow.com and search for nurse interview tips or tips for new nurses. You will find some articles and other segments over there that I’ve put together in the past, talking about the fact that no matter where you are in your nursing career when you go to interview for a job, one of the things you should bring with you is your list of questions that you have for your perspective employer. You know, it doesn’t hurt you to ask good questions about the workplace. It shows you’re interested, it shows you’re engaged and it lets them know that those types of questions are on the minds of their prospective applicants and so you should ask questions about other services available to the facility. Go online, look at you hospital’s websites, look at your perspective employer’s website and find out a little bit more about their background and jot down a few questions to bring to the interview yourself and this will help you find the right fit for you. What is a good fit for some people in some facilities is not necessarily true for everyone and so you need to find the right job that’s going to fit your perspective style in workplace, style in patient care and so magnet hospitals may not be the perfect job for you.

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This article has been featured in the news segment of the Nursing Show podcast episode Acetaminophen Medication Review for Nurses and Episode 144.