Louisville or Lexington WOW programs

BBFRN, BSN, PhD · Sep 23, 2006

Try Norton Hospital and Jewish Hospital for WOW programs in Louisville. They both have websites with job openings listed.

Good luck in your job search!

Lacie, BSN, RN · Sep 26, 2006

St. Joseph's used to have a Baylor plan. Not sure if they still do or not. Also check UK Med Ctr. I worked baylor for years and loved it.

crb613, BSN, RN · Sep 26, 2006

Thank ya'll! I will check these out. :wink2:

allnurses Guide · Oct 13, 2006

I'm thinking about looking for a baylor program myself, after my baby is born in February. I currently work 5 night shifts a week at Central State and I love the job itself, but five nights a week is about to kill me. Not to mention that I feel like I never spend any time with my daughter; how is it going to be when I'm trying to care for her and a brand new baby?

Going back to med/surge... wow. :) There are things I definately miss about med/surge, but man, what I do right now is SO much less stressful. I think I could definately handle going back to med surge though, and only working a couple of 12 hour shifts a week would be worth it.

crb613, BSN, RN · Oct 14, 2006

I'm thinking about looking for a baylor program myself, after my baby is born in February. I currently work 5 night shifts a week at Central State and I love the job itself, but five nights a week is about to kill me. Not to mention that I feel like I never spend any time with my daughter; how is it going to be when I'm trying to care for her and a brand new baby?
Going back to med/surge... wow. :) There are things I definately miss about med/surge, but man, what I do right now is SO much less stressful. I think I could definately handle going back to med surge though, and only working a couple of 12 hour shifts a week would be worth it.

How is Central State to work for? I had thought about going there when I graduated & decided I needed M/S experience first. I work in a small hospital, bare bones staff is how I can best describe it. No diff for weekends & we work every other weekend. I like the people I work with but the admin. is not that great & the benifits are not very good either. I am just not that satisified w/it.....but its a couple of mins from home. I am just constantly looking right now. I would like to get settled.....

allnurses Guide · Oct 15, 2006

It's not too bad, if you can handle working with the patient population there. Some of the patients there are VERY VERY ill with schitzophrenia, bipolar, etc; and some of them mostly just have horrifying personality disorders that make it impossible for them to survive in society. And, we also have people who get admitted with "mood disorder NOS"; which a lot of times translates to "I'm homeless, I need a place to crash for a while, so I think I'll try to get into Central State for a while by going down to UofL's ER and telling them I want to kill myself". I'm actually not trying to be judgemental, but it is a fact. The latter two types of patients are hard to deal with. The ones that are sick, sick, are not necessarily easy, but I prefer dealing with them.

Anyway, THAT part aside... it's not TOO bad of a place to work, but I don't know honestly that, in good faith, I could recommend someone go there and try to get a job. The way the place is run is rather disorganized, communication is rather spotty between admin. and employees, *I* personally don't have much trust in the higher ups there.... plus, the way they do scheduling is like nothing I've ever seen in any job I've ever had. The schedules of EVERY nursing employee in the hospital are done each month by ONE person, and scheduling is rather unflexible. I work 5 night shifts a week, and I had forgotten what a HARD, hard shift that is to work, especially with small children, in my case. They DON'T do 12 hour shifts there, although they WILL let some people do double shifts; maybe two doubles a week. I have thought about trying that on the weekends, but it would mean working EVERY weekend; if I ever wanted a weekend off there, I'd probably have to take the whole weekend off and then use a bunch of vacation or personal time, instead of maybe making up those two days during the week. They most likely would not let me do that.

So... if you're really truly interested in working with psych patients and you don't mind only being able to work five eights a week pretty much... it might be a good place to get started in that field of nursing, but I probably wouldn't stay there. I don't plan on staying there past April, really. After my baby is born, I'm most likely going to look for something with either three 12's a week, or a baylor program.

The ONE great thing I can say about the place... I work with some AWESOME people. Some of the people that work there and have worked there for a long time are absolutely wonderful. Lots of diversity among the employees too; many ethnic folks working there, many men, and many older folks. When I leave there, IF I do truly decide to leave, I'm really gonna miss the people a lot. Something I have noticed about the people there... go figure... is that most of them are either single, married but with no kids, or older with grown kids.