Nursing in Florida's Palm Beach County

[joe621]

I'm moving to Palm Beach County from Jacksonville. I have a FL nursing license and 5 years experience in float pool/med surg/progressive. After my experience in Jacksonville with 7 hospitals from which to choose, I find that you have to start working at one of the hospitals before you find out which are good, bad, better pay, better scheduling, fair to nurses, popular, desirable, etc. My priorities are 1) flexible scheduling (this can change by manager however) 2) CNA/PCA/nursing assistants who actually help their nurses (unless this is a nationwide problem) 3) highest pay other than those 3 things I can deal with just about anything, especially since I've been working at a level 1 trauma center and have seen it all.

Also, I know from working in both Tallahassee and Jacksonville that the word is to avoid any HCA hospital, but doing that would eliminate many of my choices, so I also want to know what those of you in Palm Beach County feel about our options there (JFK and ?).

[nlitened]

JFK is one of the worst. Nurses usually don't last long there. In my opinion both HCA and Tenet are horrible, but the majority of hospitals in this area are HCA or Tenet. HCA is also one of the lowest paying in this area. There are a couple non for profit hospitals in the area and UHS hospital. I would start with researching those.

West Palm only uses CNA's on one floor, so if having a CNA to help is important to you then I wouldn't even look at that hospital. However, it is a good hospital. They prefer team nursing and it works quite well for them.

If you are interested in a trauma hospital there is Delray and St. Mary's. I would stay away from Delray. Both are Tenet, but St. Mary's has a better reputation.

So it really all depends on what exactly you are looking for. Just do your research, and good luck!