Working in Mississippi

U.S.A. Mississippi

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How do you feel the working conditions for nurses fair in Mississippi, on a scale of 1-5, with fiving being the highest. After I graduate from nursing school I plan to work in Jackson at UMC, Baptist, or St. Dominique(sorry can't spell that one to good), or in a hospital in Hattiersburg. Do any of you work at either place? If so what are the working conditions like?

Do any of you know anymore good hospitals for new grads in Mississippi? Also, what is the pay like for new grads (RN) in Mississippi?

Specializes in ICU,ER.
I work in a small Ed in central Mississippi

Hey! I used to work in a (VERY) small ER in central Mississippi. Actually, a couple of them. Carthage and Canton. I have worked many places since then and have eventually ended up in Indiana but some of the best times I've had, has been in those small ER's. I found them more challenging than the large ones I've worked in since then. Nearest Level One 50 miles away...me...one doc...a tech if I was lucky....~sigh~...don't you love it??! :)

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I work in a small Ed in central Mississippi ... Mississippi is a beautiful state with plenty of "stuff" to do out side of the hospital. But I am partial. :)

I also work in a small hospital in Central Mississippi, just down the road from those BIG MEDCIAL CENTERS. I have worked at a couple of them and realize that bigger ain't always better especially when it comes to quality of patient care and how employees are treated.

I agree with ERNIRSE4MS, Mississippi is a great state! And I'm quite partial myself!

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Specializes in Private Duty Nursing : 1 year.
I currently work at St Dominic's on one of there telemetry units. I've worked there pretty much since I got out of school in 98. I enjoy it there because I not only enjoy the people I work with but we work well together as a team. I think that administration is pretty much the same everywhere here in Jackson ---- crappy!! I took a job at the VA recently for six months because of pay. They pay more if you have your BS, where other hospitals don't. However the management was lousy!! After six months I gladly took a $3.50/hr pay cut and went back to St Domonics where I work a set schedule Mon-Thurs nights one week, Mon-Wed the next and have every weekend off. St D's has a weekend program were nurses only work weekends, therefor I'm not obligated to work the usually "every-other weekend". When I got out of school I was working nights and having anywhere from 6-9 pts on the telemetry floor. Now the max is 6, which is not bad at all, considering most nights I only have 5, and some nights I only have 4. Now from my understanding it is not like that on every floor in the hospital, but the cardiac floors hang and titrate a lot of IV cardiac drugs so they have lowered our nurse patient ratio. I think most hospitals in the area are giving sign on bonus and are very competive in their pay. Meaning when one hospital gives an "across the board raise" the other hospital give one as well. I know that St Dominic's is giving $5000 with a two year obligation. You get the first $1000 on your first pay check then, $1000 every six months for two years. I feel that St Dominic's is one of the best hospitals in the area, if not the best! However, if you are looking to work in peds, we don't do much there with children. We do have an L&D with a nursery and NICU but that's it. We tend to specialize in Hearts. You may accually like taking care of heart patients (critically or on the floor). I never imagined that I would ever work in this area---but know it's all I know and it's all I'll do! I wanted to go into L&D when I got out of school but St D's have a L&D unit then, so I went to work on the tele floor and have loved it ever since. Good luck with school and your new career as a RN!!! Remember to CARE!!!:D

HI! am really glad to hear that there is someone out there who is in the same boat as i am ( like peds there!) . i'm curently in my senior year in BS Nursing,i finished BS Chemical engineering but am thinking of persuing both (if time can allow me) . I am in the philippines and planning on moving to Canton, Mississippi by next year, i'll be done with BSN by march 2006. i was relaly wondeing how the nursing profession in MS be like? and how does poeple there deal with asians..am a bit nervous about what others say as racism. i relaly would love to work there. i am kinda targeting :) :) UMC, how far is it from canton? will they accept fresh graduates? i want to become an OR nurse but is still open to areas where God will lead me, i also like working at the ward since you can interact closely with patients. hmm.what else..what are the requirements of mississippi hospitals for fresh graduates and for those from the Philipines, i'll be able to go there because it's me and my boyfriend's plan. be going there on fiance visa..hope you can enlighten me more and tell me what i need to do..i am sooooo excited to work in MS!! oh yea, how about the current range of pay? :p

God bless us all...

I am relaly excited!!!

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HI! am really glad to hear that there is someone out there who is in the same boat as i am ( like peds there!) . i'm curently in my senior year in BS Nursing,i finished BS Chemical engineering but am thinking of persuing both (if time can allow me) . I am in the philippines and planning on moving to Canton, Mississippi by next year, i'll be done with BSN by march 2006. i was relaly wondeing how the nursing profession in MS be like? and how does poeple there deal with asians..am a bit nervous about what others say as racism. i relaly would love to work there. i am kinda targeting :) :) UMC, how far is it from canton? will they accept fresh graduates? i want to become an OR nurse but is still open to areas where God will lead me, i also like working at the ward since you can interact closely with patients. hmm.what else..what are the requirements of mississippi hospitals for fresh graduates and for those from the Philipines, i'll be able to go there because it's me and my boyfriend's plan. be going there on fiance visa..hope you can enlighten me more and tell me what i need to do..i am sooooo excited to work in MS!! oh yea, how about the current range of pay? :p

God bless us all...

I am relaly excited!!!

I just wanted to say an early welcome to Mississippi. I think you will really love it here! I'll try to help you as much as I can with the information you're seeking. Oh by the way, I'm a nursing student as well at Mississippi College. I'm only in my 1st semester. Mississippi is a great placed to live and raise children. I don't think you have to worry so much about racism. Of course there is racism everywhere, but I don't think it is any worse than in other place you may go to. I don't think you will have anything to worry about. There is a nicely sized population of Asians that live here in the Jackson Metro area already and I think it will increase because of the Nissan plant that is in Canton. Is that why you decided to move to Canton? UMC (which is located in Jackson) is about a 30 minute drive from Canton (maybe more in the morning due to traffic). UMC is a good hospital to work at because it is our only teaching hospital and it is a level one trauma center, so if you're looking for lots of action that would be my 1st choice. I hope to work there when I graduate in 2007. They definitely do accept new graduates. As far as the pay goes, I've heard several people say different things about new grad starting pay. I think the best option for you is to call around to some of the hospitals and find out that way or just put in several applications and get a sense of who is paying what. I know my sister-n-law graduated from UMC in 2004 and found a job working in a dialysis center making 19.00 per hour. But I've also heard of students graduating last year who only started out making 16.50 per hour. :stone That's the lowest I've ever heard of and was surprised it was so low; so I think it depends a lot on where you end up working at and how bad they need nurses. As far as being licensed in Mississippi, I don't know what is required, but I've posted the BON's website below to get you started in the right direction. I hope this helps and keep in touch and let me know how it's going for you.:)

Here they are. The first one is the Mississippi Board of Nursing and the last link is our local newspaper for the Jackson Metro area:

http://www.msbn.state.ms.us/lawsrules.htm

http://msnurses.org/

http://www.mhanet.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

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The Methodist I remember was way out by I-20/I-220/Hwy 18. They had done a major revamp on the ER (moved it to another area of the building), redid the L&D, nursery and NICU areas. They were "the" place to go for labor and NICU.

Yeah the one you're referring to is now called Central Mississippi Medical Center.

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I lived in Jackson for a while (1994-1998 - worked for AMR as medic). St. D didn't do anything with expectant mothers let alone peds. Methodist was the place to go for that. What happened to them? Haven't heard much about them lately.

Roxan

I think St. Dominic is trying to change their image now. They started a campaign some time ago about their new (or updated) maternity ward. I heard that they don't do tubal ligations though. I don't know if this has changed or not.

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Specializes in Private Duty Nursing : 1 year.

HI!Thank you soo much cahttypatty! got the answers i needed. hmm..ok, how about the CRNA? how is it so different with RN? what are the things that a CRNA can do that nurses can't? i bet you still need to have further studies, but what course RN's should take to become CRNA? and how many months? how is it different from MS? which is better? =)i have an idea but it isn't enough because i don't think we have that here in our country. There is a growing number of areas already in nursing that i want to know or even be aware of. sooo many questions!!!=) thank you for taking time to answer! =) oh wait, another thing,what does an anesthetists do? how is it also different from CRNA?

Good luck with your studies! i sure will be writing here often! thank you!

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HI!Thank you soo much cahttypatty! got the answers i needed. hmm..ok, how about the CRNA? how is it so different with RN? what are the things that a CRNA can do that nurses can't? i bet you still need to have further studies, but what course RN's should take to become CRNA? and how many months? how is it different from MS? which is better? =)i have an idea but it isn't enough because i don't think we have that here in our country. There is a growing number of areas already in nursing that i want to know or even be aware of. sooo many questions!!!=) thank you for taking time to answer! =) oh wait, another thing,what does an anesthetists do? how is it also different from CRNA?

Good luck with your studies! i sure will be writing here often! thank you!

A CRNA can perform anesthesia, but they are still considered to be under the direction of an anesthesiologist; although from what I hear it is not that much. You are able to have much more autonomy than a regular nurse and the compensation is very good. There is a forum on this site for Nurse Anesthetists and you will be able to find out a lot of information there and would be a lot more accurate than I could give you. Anesthesia school is approximately 24 months, give or take a few months depending on the school you attend. You must have at least a year of ICU experience before you can apply. At UMC they are affiliated with UAB (University of Alabama) for the anesthesia program, which means you have to do 18 months (I think...) of didactic training in Alabama and then you come back to UMC for clinicals. But the good news is that UMC has been talking about implementing their own anesthesia school in the next 5 years or so. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.:)

Here's the link for the anesthesia forum:

https://allnurses.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=16

Also if you are interested in other fields as well, there is a link above every page on this site called "Nursing Discussion" and after you click on that, click on the link for "Nursing Specialties" that will take you to every area you can think of that a nurse may go into.:)

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Specializes in Private Duty Nursing : 1 year.
I just wanted to say an early welcome to Mississippi. I think you will really love it here! I'll try to help you as much as I can with the information you're seeking. Oh by the way, I'm a nursing student as well at Mississippi College. I'm only in my 1st semester. Mississippi is a great placed to live and raise children. I don't think you have to worry so much about racism. Of course there is racism everywhere, but I don't think it is any worse than in other place you may go to. I don't think you will have anything to worry about. There is a nicely sized population of Asians that live here in the Jackson Metro area already and I think it will increase because of the Nissan plant that is in Canton. Is that why you decided to move to Canton? UMC (which is located in Jackson) is about a 30 minute drive from Canton (maybe more in the morning due to traffic). UMC is a good hospital to work at because it is our only teaching hospital and it is a level one trauma center, so if you're looking for lots of action that would be my 1st choice. I hope to work there when I graduate in 2007. They definitely do accept new graduates. As far as the pay goes, I've heard several people say different things about new grad starting pay. I think the best option for you is to call around to some of the hospitals and find out that way or just put in several applications and get a sense of who is paying what. I know my sister-n-law graduated from UMC in 2004 and found a job working in a dialysis center making 19.00 per hour. But I've also heard of students graduating last year who only started out making 16.50 per hour. :stone That's the lowest I've ever heard of and was surprised it was so low; so I think it depends a lot on where you end up working at and how bad they need nurses. As far as being licensed in Mississippi, I don't know what is required, but I've posted the BON's website below to get you started in the right direction. I hope this helps and keep in touch and let me know how it's going for you.:)

Here they are. The first one is the Mississippi Board of Nursing and the last link is our local newspaper for the Jackson Metro area:

http://www.msbn.state.ms.us/lawsrules.htm

http://msnurses.org/

http://www.mhanet.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

hi! i checked on the site you gave me, thanks soo much, i even emailed the BOn of MS. the regulations of MS BON is that i need to submit a CGFNS certificate or any substitute. but what substitute? any guys have an idea?wanted to be ready. :confused: i will sooi graduate from a college here in the philippines.they haven't sent any reply.

thanks for all the help! God bless!

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Specializes in Private Duty Nursing : 1 year.

hi! i am a senior nursing student here in the philippines, am thinking of working in central mississippi and of course i need to take the licensure exam.Can you give me some tips in preparing for the exam? what nursing review books can you suggest esp for MS exam. and well, about the reivew there, how long will review classes take and how much? can you rate the difficulty? the closer graduation gest the higher my anxiety level goes. I'll be very much grateful for the help from you and friends who have taken the exam. God bless us and our patients...Thank You

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Specializes in Private Duty Nursing : 1 year.
I also work in a small hospital in Central Mississippi, just down the road from those BIG MEDCIAL CENTERS. I have worked at a couple of them and realize that bigger ain't always better especially when it comes to quality of patient care and how employees are treated.

I agree with ERNIRSE4MS, Mississippi is a great state! And I'm quite partial myself!

HI!!!! hi to you and everybidy? anyone here who works at MEA central MS? how do you find it? any feedbacks?thanks everyone!

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