Renown Medical Ctr vs. St Mary's in Reno Nevada?

[CRASHT1224]

Hi guys,

I have interviews at both Renown and ST Mary's in Reno.. Does anyone have any experience with either of them?

Im not a new grad..been a nurse for a bit over a year. Im applying to a general med/surg area to get more of a solid base in nursing before moving on to an ICU area.

Please let me know your impressions of either place. Are the nurses happy? How is management? Pay rates?

Im new to town, so any help would be appreciated!

Thanks :)

[Reno1978, BSN, RN]

I worked at Renown for a year before I relocated back to my hometown. I started there as an apprentice nurse while I finished nursing school and started in one of their ICUs right out of school. If you're an experienced nurse with an intent to work ICU, I'd apply to work in one of their ICUs now. I had friends that worked on the general surgical floor and they'd have up to 9 patients on nights at times. Renown has a 28-bed trauma ICU, an 18-bed medical/surgical ICU and a 36-bed cardiac ICU as well as a PICU and NICU, so your options to work in critical care are pretty plentiful.

I only had clinicals at Saint Mary's (and for some reason some of the people at Saint Mary's hate it when people type their name as St. Mary's, LOL) and I liked it there. It's a smaller hospital with 380 beds versus over 800 at Renown.

When I left in December of 2008, I was making 27.17/hr, which was the new grad pay rate at the time. There was a 10% differential for nights, no weekend differential.