Tucson Medical Center - New Grad Pay? - Page 3

Wow, I remember talking to you when I was a student. I'm suprised at that pay, actually. I have 1.5 years and make a few dollars more than that.


There's no loyality in nursing. You gotta move about to get the best pay...

My boyfriend works for TMC. The starting pay was a little less but after 3 months went up to 33. He started out in med/sug now moving to othro.
He has to finish out commitment contract--.

Yep for about 6 months and then moved back to Minnesota. I'm freezing to death but I love my job here. I agree, TMC is all about recruiting, not retention. Fortunately I did not have to pay back my sign-on/moving bonuses because they changed the terms of my contract. I signed on to work ICU and because they needed RN's in telemetry, they came up with some excuse why I needed to work there instead. Let's just say working on the telemetry unit was "interesting." But the position change was completely against my will. However I felt trapped, we had just moved there and I stuck it out for a short while.

With that being said, it wasn't the best place I worked nor was it the worst. It's an okay place. I wouldn't say it's a "dump" either. I miss the warm sunny weather.

Hahahahahaha... I know this is original post is almost 2 months old, but I had to include my input on TMC. I just recently moved to Colorado with my hubby and baby so we can be a bit closer to my family for a while; we did live in Sells, the capital of the Tohono O'odham Nation, and 60 miles southwest of Tucson. Since today is the 1-year "anniversary" for my appendectomy...lol... I thought I'd post. When I had appendicitis a year ago, I was already 3 months pregnant. The horrible pain in my lower-right abdominal quadrant was too bad and insistent to ignore, so hubby and I went into the Sells IHS E.R. Since they aren't equipped to deal with abdominal surgery, they assessed me, hooked me up to an I.V., phoned the E.R. at Tucson Medical Center, and sent me down there on an ambulance. This was late at night. The ambulance ride was bumpy and painful, but at least the driver went fast. When the EMT took me into the TMC E.R., he gave my info to the E.R. triage nurse and switched me from a stretcher to a rolling bed. And then I laid there on that rolling bed, in triage, for hours and hours just laying there in pain. I was pretty much left alone, no one checked up on me, and I was in a good amount of pain, as you all can imagine. I always thought that appendicitis, especially in a pregnant patient, would constitute an emergency; after all, can't the appendix rupture at any time when inflamed? Apparently there were greater emergencies there, which I do understand, however again I thought appendicitis kind of ranks up there as a priority. So I stayed in triage all the rest of that night and into the morning. I'm guessing TMC's E.R. is grossly understaffed. It wasn't until around 10 am the next morning that I was rolled into the actual emergency room to get assessed. During this whole ordeal, I wasn't given anything to drink (which I understand, because of the surgery) or even ice chips to suck on (does that fall under the 'drinks' category?). I was hooked up to an I.V. so I wasn't dehydrated, but my mouth sure was horribly dry. Finally I got to rinse it out with some horrible tasting mouthwash. lol. But at least it was something! I stayed in the actual E.R. again for several hours and then was finally admitted and sent up to my room. From then on it got much better; a surgeon came to speak with me almost immediately, did a quick assessment and had me prepped for surgery, and the rest is history. LOL sorry this is a long story. To any of you E.R. nurses out there, is this the story for most other E.R.s? Would a patient with appendicitis, especially a pregnant patient, gotten left to wait for hours and hours at another E.R.? I wonder what would have happened if my appendix had ruptured while I was waiting. I know it would have been bad for me and baby. Thank God that didn't happen! Anyway, the story I guess is just to reiterate the point that there are both good and bad departments to TMC. I did have a good experience in their L&D and postpartum units. Ok, I will stop rambling now!

Wow, $24 sounds great to me! Here in Louisiana, the starting pay for new grad RNs just went up to $18.50! And cost of living is not any lower than someplace like Phoenix.

Someplace like Phoenix?

Having lived in LA for a bit, this statement didn't quite seem right. So after doing a cost of living analysis, depending where in LA you live its between 12.5% (New Orleans) and 33.7% (Tallulah) cheaper.

What can I say? I'm a dork.

We have 10% sales tax on everything in the city where I live. Housing is no longer cheap. My car insurance rates doubled when I moved to Louisiana from Washington, DC. Just a few examples.

Do you think housing in cheap in Phoenix? Even with the soft market, you still pay a lot of a little teeny bit of land.

Phoenix isn't some 4 way intersection with a cactus and a tumbleweed blowing by. It's a major city.

And $24/hr isn't enough, IMO...

I didn't mean to start an argument. Of course Phoenix is not a tumbleweed in the middle of nowhere. I have been researching Phoenix a lot lately because I may be working out there this summer. I have never been, so I cannot officially give any input.

Thanks for your info though.