Career Center

At Duke Nursing, our goal is to provide Opportunities for a Lifetime for today's top nursing and health care professionals. Beyond attracting high-quality talent, we also strive to create professional environments that motivate our employees to learn, to grow in their careers, and to achieve their greatest potential.

DUKE NURSING BENEFITS
Duke Nursing offers an attractive pay structure, and annual performance increases for nursing staff. Shift premiums, paid time off, Nurse Loan Forgiveness, certification bonuses, and a unique Clinical Ladder Program that helps you advance your career are added benefits that not only recognize, but reward nursing excellence in patient care. 

NURSE LOAN FORGIVENESS PROGRAM
Duke University Health System (DUHS) values the education of its nursing staff and offers a unique Nursing School Student Loan Forgiveness Program for registered nurses with outstanding pre-licensure student loans. The program is for eligible full- time (.9 FTE or 36+ hours/week) nurses hired on or after July 1, 2013, who work in procedural areas and provide services to inpatients. Total payment is up to $25,000 for loans acquired in the attainment of a nursing degree.

CLINICAL LADDER
The Duke University Health System Clinical Ladder Program recognizes the expertise of nurses who make a difference at the bedside, and provide exceptional clinical leadership. There are three distinct tracks: Education, Practice, and Management.

All new graduate nurses enter the clinical ladder at a Level I, and are required to advance to a Level II within 18 months of employment in the health system. Levels III and IV are voluntary achievement levels that require additional education, leadership management, increasing administrative responsibilities, and specific nursing years of service. Increases in compensation reflect upward progression on the clinical ladder.

REGISTERED NURSE TUITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (RNTAP)
Duke University Health System (DUHS) and the Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) support the continued education and learning of our registered nurses, as we believe a highly educated nursing workforce further strengthens the quality of care, clinical outcomes and translation of nursing research into clinical practice within our system.

The Registered Nurse Tuition Assistance Program (RNTAP) provides funding in conjunction with the Duke Employee Tuition Assistance Program. For eligible registered nurses, RNTAP contributes up to 90% of tuition for study toward a Master's degree, post-Master's degree certificate, and Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) at the Duke University School of Nursing.

CERTIFICATION BONUS
Designed to recognize Registered Nurses who have specialty trained competencies, to develop nursing leadership, and to enhance nurse recruitment and retention at Duke University Health System. Nurses are eligible for an initial one-time payment of $1000 for completion of a specialty certification. There is a $750 payment upon renewal of the original certification.

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE
Duke Nursing searches for top quality nurses from across the United States and internationally. Financial assistance is provided to nursing candidates who join the Duke Nursing team and must relocate to the area, based on the following eligibility criteria:

• Experienced RN and Case Manager candidates moving inside NC, move at least 75 miles are eligible to receive up to $1,500
• New Graduate RN candidates moving from outside of NC are eligible to receive up to $1,500
• Experienced RN and Case Manager candidates moving outside of NC are eligible to receive up to $3,000

For students permanent address will be used for purpose of determining eligibility for relocation Grant. Nurses working
under a compact nursing license are not eligible for a relocation grant until their primary state of residency is changed
to North Carolina. Application must be submitted within 90 days of permanent address declaration.

Relocation financial assistance is subject to federal and state tax.

HEALTH SYSTEM BENEFITS & COMPENSATION
The Duke University Health System offers comprehensive benefits designed to reward and empower employees - both personally and professionally. Duke’s overall benefits plan has long been recognized for its comprehensiveness and competitiveness in the market. In addition to a robust array of traditional benefits such as health care, dental care and retirement, Duke also offers a wide range of family-friendly and cultural benefits to attract, support and reward skilled employees.

Our comprehensive benefits package includes:

• Group health insurance
• Life & disability insurance
• Paid pension retirement for non-exempt employees
• Voluntary defined contribution retirement plan for exempt employees
• Tax-deferred annuity and mutual fund options
• Duke Federal Credit Union membership
• Voluntary dental, supplemental life, personal, short & long-term disability plans
• Duke tuition assistance

Life as a Duke nurse is an exciting one. From gathering triage information for a patient en route to a hospital Emergency Department, to checking in on a long-time primary care patient at a clinic, we all share the same commitment to caring for our patients, their loved ones, and each other.

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE MODEL
We derive our beliefs and values from our Professional Practice Model – a description of the beliefs and values used to consistently demonstrate professional practice within an organization. Through this model, we deliver care to achieve excellent outcomes that are consistent with the nursing values and expectations grounded in caring practices:

• Integrity
• Excellence
• Innovation
• Collaboration

SHARED GOVERNANCE
Shared governance has been a cornerstone for Duke Professional Nursing for many years. Shared governance is shared decision making for professional nursing and organizational leadership related to practice, quality, competence, and knowledge management. The Duke Nursing Shared Governance model is composed of Clinical Practice; Professional Development; & Quality & Safety:

Duke Nursing Clinical Practice is composed of the entity practice councils, specialty councils, such as Oncology, Pediatrics, Critical Care Standards, and Vascular Access Council, to name a few, as well as Research and Evidence Based Practice.
Professional Development Council oversees the education for nurses new to the organization, as well is responsible for on-going education and development of every Duke Nurse. The Professional Development Council also oversees the Duke Clinical Ladder and Patient & Family Education.
Duke Nursing Quality & Safety is responsible for the review of data and provides input into nurse sensitive indicator goals. Duke Nursing Informatics has a collaborative relationship with Duke Nursing Clinical Practice Council and Quality & Safety Council.
 

BSN2020

Duke University Health System is committed to maintaining its standing as a world-class academic and health care system. Duke is on a trajectory to meet industry and marketplace expectations that 80 percent of its nurses will have attained at least a baccalaureate nursing degree by the year 2020. This goal is in alignment with recommendations originally made by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Institute of Medicine in the October 2010 landmark report “The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.”

The majority of all Duke University Health System nurses hold a baccalaureate, or higher, nursing degree. Newly hired nursing candidates who do not currently have such a degree are required to provide evidence of enrollment in a baccalaureate program within two years of employment, and to achieve completion of the degree program within five years of the start of their employment.

DIVERSITY @ DUKE
Most importantly, Duke Nurses are vital members of the communities they serve. Our reasons for becoming a nurse, backgrounds, life perspectives, and future aspirations all vary, but our commitment to nursing excellence in patient-centered settings is the same.

Duke Nursing supports a positive environment that actively promotes equality of opportunity and freedom from discrimination on the basis of age, cultural background, class, disability, ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation – in both education and employment. We are committed to removing conditions that place staff at a disadvantage, and work to actively combat discrimination. 

A CULTURE OF SAFETY
SAFE ENVIRONMENT
The Safe Patient Handling and Mobility (SPHM) Program, “Duke MOVES,” is focused on providing a safe work environment for our staff who perform patient handling activities. Duke MOVES includes a patient mobility assessment each shift that identifies a patient’s mobility needs and lift equipment or devices necessary to safely mobilize a patient. This is essential as findings show that early mobility during hospitalization can lead to a decrease in hospital-related complications like pressure ulcers, falls, and pneumonia.

Duke MOVES is a best practice aligned with new ANA-SPHM guidelines. All Duke clinical areas have a champion who collaborates with the manager to provide equipment or devices, key SPHM principle training and ensures Duke MOVES is active. Quarterly champion meetings provide development experiences and an opportunity to participate in system-wide decision-making.

Available lift equipment and transfer devices at DUHS include: Steady, Encore/SARA Plus, Opera/Maxi Move, Maxi Sky, Care Lift, HoverMatt, Hover Jack, and Blue Plastic Liners.

In the last 2 years patient related injuries have reduced by 43%-55% across all three hospitals. To learn more about Duke Moves MOVES, please click here.

RESILIENCE PROGRAM

The Duke Patient Safety Center works to develop and support quality and safety related roles, committees, training, tools, research, strategies, data and other resources through our interdisciplinary team. We strive to balance the clinical, administrative, psychological, spiritual, and service needs of our organization, our frontline workers and the patients that we serve.

Before we care about quality, we have to care about our work, and before we can care about our work, we have to take better care of ourselves. Where are the role models for resilience and self-care? The growing consensus in the peer reviewed literature is that burnout levels in healthcare workers are reaching the breaking point. Against the backdrop of healthcare reform and economic uncertainty, our resilience is even further compromised. But for many individuals and work units, there needs to be a focus on the caregivers, and their needs, to build resilience and bounce back from burnout, before providing the training and the tools to improve quality in a sustainable way.

CARING FOR OUR PATIENTS, THEIR LOVED ONES, AND EACH OTHER