Name: Liz, age 48

Nursing experience: 26 years

Job Title: Pediatric Telephone Triage Nurse

Metro Area: Denver, Colorado

Place of Employment: Hospital

How did you find the job? Did you know someone at the clinic or hospital?
I found the job by taking my son to speech therapy. The office for the telephone triage unit was across from my son’s speech therapist office. One day, I decided to walk in and ask about the job. I talked with the clinical manager, who set up an interview that week. I was offered the job shortly thereafter.

How much do you make an hour? And what benefits do you get?
•    $38.16 (2008), without any differentials;
•    Benefits: health (I contribute $80 per pay period, vision (I contribute $5 per pay period, dental (I contribute $15 per pay period);
•    Other benefits: Free “Eagle Pass” (I can ride the RTD bus anywhere in the Denver Metro area); 401 K (matching up to 4 percent); flexible spending accounts for daycare and medical.

How many hours a week do you work?
•    41 one week, 32 the next;

What shifts do you work?
•    Some day shifts (7 A.M. to 5 P.M.)
•    Other shifts (5 P.M. to 11 P.M. or 5 P.M. to 1 A.M.)
•    Evening shifts I normally work from home.

How much vacation do you get?
•    I’ve been at the job 10 years, so I receive 9 hours per pay period – but that includes sick days as well – it all goes into one “bank”;
•    I also have an “extended illness bank.” If I were really sick, once I reach more than 3 days, I can draw on these sick days. If I’m not sick, however, I cannot use the hours. The hospital puts roughly 2 hours per pay period in this extended illness bank.

What experience did you have prior to landing this job?
•    I worked 10 years in a downtown hospital as an ER nurse;
•    I worked a couple years as a float pool nurse at another hospital;
•    Just out of nursing school, I worked as an ER nurse and as a Flight Nurse.

What do you love about the job?
•    I’m a single mom, so I love the flexibility. I can choose which hours I work on the unit and which I work at home; and
•    I love being an independent practitioner and using my critical thinking skills instead of merely doing task-oriented nursing.

What is boring or tedious about the job?
•    Advising parents about vomiting and diarrhea;
•    When I first started, I thought, “I’m going to be so good at this job and it’s going to be so easy.” It wasn’t. You have to do so much multitasking – I had to learn the computer program, I had to learn how to triage safely and effectively – and to sound confident.
•    Before I decided I loved the job, it took me two years.

What’s the best nursing experience for this position?
•    Working in a NICU or PICU;
•    Lots of clinical experience;
•    The ER experience was also helpful, but it in a way was also a bit detrimental, because I assumed that folks were sicker than what they really were. I had a high referral rate when I first started triage.

How many years of experience do you need to land the job?
It depends on the number of years of experience you have, how you interview, the type of experience you have. You need experience where you have been forced to use your critical thinking skills. Taking care of critical patients is very helpful, because it teaches you how to process red-flag symptoms, which is what you need to do in triage.

You can’t count on the parents to define what’s important. With my position, you have to listen carefully. Parents may inadvertently mention a potentially serious symptom – but they don’t recognize it as serious. If I don’t address the symptom, I may miss a serious condition.

The trick to triage is to stopping the parent when they mention a red-flag symptom. The other trick to triage is calming a parent when he or she thinks his or her son is having a serious illness – when the son may only have a viral illness better taken care of at home than in an emergency room.

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