Are there nurses from Jacksonville here?

kenesha212002 · Apr 19, 2006

Hi, I have lived in Jacksonville all my life. I went to nursing school in Tallahassee but I came back home to work. I would say the pay in Jacksonville is about the average in Florida. It is not as high as South Florida but not as low as Northwest Florida. The weather is cold for Florida but in the summer it is hot just like the rest of the south. There are 7-8 hospitals and the working conditions can be really great and some are not so great depending on the area of town. I work at Baptist Beaches and I love it. There are four Baptist hospitals and the Beaches has 122 beds. The larger downtown campus has about 500+ beds. Shands Jacksonville is probably the biggest hospital and the working conditions are maybe the worse.

Other than that the schools are ok, private schools are better, there are many churches to choose from and public transportation is every where. Jacksonville is a great city and I like it here. There is a lot of cultural attractions and many golf clubs!

bodgie · Apr 23, 2006

HI Daning,

I've been working as a nurse here in jacksonville since september last year at wolfson children's hospital. Jacksonville's a great place, full of wonderfull people. A lot of filipinos here too.

Daning · Apr 23, 2006

^ Hi Bodgie, that's nice to know!

so how's the working conditions and the supposed notorious low wage as posted by a lot of people in this forum? how about the churches and schools? my family and i may be there soon so i'm looking at these things.

thanks and keep in touch

BethAnn614 · Apr 26, 2006

Hi, and although I wasn't the OP, we too are looking to move to the Jacksonville area, so thanks for the advice! You stated that the working conditions at Shands aren't the best - do you know what they're like at Specialty Hospital? And what about benefits? My DH carries us here, but it's going to be up to me if we move, so I have to find a job that offers decent benefits. TIA

BethAnn

Butterfly03 · May 1, 2006

Are there any hospitals that offer new grad orientations for ICU?

inwyte · May 4, 2006

^ Hi Bodgie, that's nice to know!
so how's the working conditions and the supposed notorious low wage as posted by a lot of people in this forum? how about the churches and schools? my family and i may be there soon so i'm looking at these things.
thanks and keep in touch

i agree that pay here is not that much...but i sooo love this place...ive been here since just last year and i love the place right away..ive been to california,virginia,tennssee but i settled for this..jax is a little laid back as compared to cali but not as laid back as tn..lots of nursing options to choose from...churches are depending on where you live...here in our place we have 2 churches that are just 10 min away from us...schools are a lot..

and yea,filipinos are everywhere since the naval base is here..so you wont feel that homesick..

if you got anymore more ? just email me....kita kita na lang tayo:welcome:

Daning · May 5, 2006

i agree that pay here is not that much...but i sooo love this place...ive been here since just last year and i love the place right away..ive been to california,virginia,tennssee but i settled for this..jax is a little laid back as compared to cali but not as laid back as tn..lots of nursing options to choose from...churches are depending on where you live...here in our place we have 2 churches that are just 10 min away from us...schools are a lot..
and yea,filipinos are everywhere since the naval base is here..so you wont feel that homesick..
if you got anymore more ? just email me....kita kita na lang tayo:welcome:

Thanks for the reply. So how did you eventually decide to settle in Jacksonville? Jax seem exciting. So do you attend functions/gatherings with fellow Filipinos? I really want my kids to be in touch with their Pinoy roots.

One more thing, I heard somewhere that there's some concern with the crime rate there. How true is this?

hlfpnt, BSN, RN · May 7, 2006

Are there any hospitals that offer new grad orientations for ICU?

Baptist & St. Vincents both do.

HeidiSuz · May 19, 2006

Any feedback from you guys with your experience working/living in Jacksonville?...working conditions...pay...weather...schools...churches...public transpo...etc...
Thanks!

The general public does not understand the nursing discipline, how it works and all is placed generally on our records. So someone that does not understand could think we hurt someone badly and we are bad nurses but this system creates the lesser nurse.. .All the discipline has done for me is make me relive it when I go for a job. I have pain in my heart and cry when I apply for work because there is no telling what someone might do to me next.. This mean to me and others no matter how you put it. It is an unbalanced and unconstitutional and an unfair system. I did nothing intentionally but you want me to suffer and be made to be a lesser nurse when I was in the line of duty and doing the very best I could do with what I had to work with. . What is wrong with this picture, as it makes no sense. I got fired six times in a row and not allowed to work as my discipline was published at Shands by a supervisor to retaliate. Now my license is ruined. I have been black balled.

To let this make more sense to you, an X roomate got mad and was fired from a staffing job at the agency I worked for locally, she decided to blame me, her roomate ( By the way she did not have a place to live and I put a roof over her head) She went to my employee fill at the agency pulled an old but single complaint or the only one I had in one year of work, stated vile commments and sent it to the state of florida nursing board. My life has been a night mare. I do not know how I have survived. I am abused regularly when I apply for a job and I am upfront about someone really stupid that happened to me. Here is the most recent let down and re discipline I get for a complaint that is 8 years old:

Here is my imput: Yesterday, I was called by a local HCA ethics committee and told, " You have sanctions on your license, you use profanity, you threatened to call your congressman and the CEO. I did not make a threat I did call the CEO and my congressman.

I was denied an interview at the last minute by All About Staffing, Then, called by an ethics committee and harassed.

I do not use profanity, my license is not under sanction and I did call the congressman and the CEO for the unprofessional behavior towards, all because I have a discipline on my license for a bed with a man at 30 degrees who could eat and was contracted and if I put the bed up to 45 degrees I may have broken his bones. I was team nursing with a charge nurse also, she got no blame, but she was not an agency nurse either. I will share this with you until someone listens and does something. I met another nurse who went before the board and did not have an attorney and the story is the same, the way the complaints were written up are the same, nursing assistants were used as the linchpins in both cases and we both got discipline. Except I get re discipline when I go for a job and I am honest. I am broke, I have no retirements. I wish I had not been born. I hate nursing and I cry every night at work. I will never trust anyone ever again.. I hate people who do not make it better for nurses instead make constant demands and do not improve the standards of nursing for the work environment.. Here is what happens when I go for a job: This is a sick professions with mentally ill people who like to abuse other nurses if given the chance. Maybe it is time to ask for constitutional rights when nurses are disciplined. The right to an attorney and one appointed if you could not afford one. Ever hear of democracy. I believe this is written in the constitution. Here is an example of my applying for a job with a discipline on my license: Ever heard of equal employment opportunities ? Do you suppose a congressman might know about them ? What is fair about being turned down for jobs and having to work awful jobs and cry because you are broke all the time. ? What about a system to take petty discipline off our records so we can get jobs and live in freedom in America instead of being treated like a criminal and having doors shut in your face. Because this I had not done anything bad in my life, now I am bad and not allowed employment. I hate nursing.

Life is one big fight. I am ruined. All over a 30 degree bed and nothing happened to the patient. He was contracted, I could not do anything different. Please give me some feed back. No one wants me to work. I again am ruined. Nursing is a bad profession for me and I am fifty years old and it is too late to change. Anyone had a similar experience ? I would like to know if you want to start a lobby to get constitutional rights at the nursing board. Please let me hear from you. Thank you. Help me to deal with this, be my friend, my support if you can. I have no family and I am living with this very depressed.

jonear2, RN · May 20, 2006

Shands is not terrible. I work there and I love it. Its the "county" hospital, we serve alot of the indigent population. Is it hard to work here? Acuity wise yeah, and we dont have the prettiest rooms, but I guarantee 6 months at Shands and you will get hired anywhere. Git R Done.

Someone asked about specialty hospital. I did clinicals there in school and you really have got to be a special person to work there. Everyone there has contact precautions MRSA, VRE, c-diff, you name it they got it. Most patients have wounds, decubs, wound vacs. If you like wound care thats the place. They have an in-house dialysis unit and a some pts on the vent. I want to say its a 50 bed hospital. I dot know about pay, but the food there sucks lol.

HeidiSuz · May 20, 2006

Shands is not terrible. I work there and I love it. Its the "county" hospital, we serve alot of the indigent population. Is it hard to work here? Acuity wise yeah, and we dont have the prettiest rooms, but I guarantee 6 months at Shands and you will get hired anywhere. Git R Done.
Someone asked about specialty hospital. I did clinicals there in school and you really have got to be a special person to work there. Everyone there has contact precautions MRSA, VRE, c-diff, you name it they got it. Most patients have wounds, decubs, wound vacs. If you like wound care thats the place. They have an in-house dialysis unit and a some pts on the vent. I want to say its a 50 bed hospital. I dot know about pay, but the food there sucks lol.

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I worked Shands three years. There are some terrible people working there just like anyone other place. How long you been a nurse ? A couple of years maybe ? I am glad for your rose colored glasses. Shands I believe is an awful place to work with the wrong supervisors or inexperienced ones.

reply. Shands is an awful place to work.