schedule as a PA in a suburban or urban ED

[queenofhearts]

Hello 

I know this could differ based on the group you work for, location, etc. However, generally speaking what is the typical schedule for a PA in the ED in a suburban, urban or teaching facility? How many nights and or weekends are you required to work a month? And does this specialty really afford a better lifestyle and ability to take vacations or time off more easily (in stretches) than the normal 8-5 M-F grind? Thanks!

[EMEDPA]

typical ED schedule at most places involves 12 hr shifts, 12-14/month. 1/3 days, 1/3 swings, 1/3 nights rotating through weekdays/weekends. some places only have a PA on days, but busy places have them around the clock. you may be able to front load or back load your schedule to get long stretches of time off. really varies a lot place to place. I like all nights for a more consistent schedule and there typically is a night differential as well.

[ohiovolffemtp]

I'm at 3 ED's: a level 3 trauma center, a medium-small community hospital, and a small critical access hospital.  In each place the shifts are 10 hours.  The L3 trauma center has 5 different APC shifts.  The other 2 only have 1 APC shift: 1 is 10:00-20:00, the other is 12:00-22:00.  As EMED said, it's all site specific, including whether there is a night differential.  Bundling shifts usually requires agreable co-workers.

[EMEDPA]

also, the larger the PA/NP group, the easier it is to get time off by frontloading/backloading. 15 PAs? no problem. 3-5? gonna be tough.

[PACoors]

I'm at a L3 Trauma Center, somewhat rural setting. We have 3-4 differnt PA shifts per day. 8a-6p (FT and main ER), 11a-9p (PIT), 6p-4a (FT and main ER) and a 12p-10p (Main ER). We all rotate through everything pretty equally. At the moment we all do about 4-5 nights, some months its 4 and some months you get 5 nights. Corporate won't pay a night diff for people who have volunteered to do strict nights so we all still rotate through nights. We all work about 1.5-2 weekends a month, since we have gotten back up to full(er) staffing its more like 1.5 weekends a month. We send out Chief PA our requests to be off each month and he is pretty good about making a schedule that satisfies everyone. 

[BirdDogPA]

I'm at a level 1 academic trauma center full time and usually do 13-14 shifts a month. We average about 36 hrs a week and get 4 hours of "administrative" time. All my other jobs are PRN so I make my schedule.