Can anyone give me insight to Marshfield?

[tizmonster]

What is the major industry? What are the schools like? Housing Market - cost of living? What are the hospitals in the area? Any insight would be helpful. I'm going up there in a couple of weeks.

[likatutata]

it seems to me that everybody i know who lives/has lived in marshfield has worked at the hospital, or commuted to stevens point and worked at the university. the only hospital that i've been to there is the marshfield clinic. it's huge, state of the art, amazing, and HUGE. i used to drive 5 hours across WI to see a specialist there. cost of living...about average for Wisconsin. i lived there as a poor college student and i survived. :)

[tvccrn, ASN, RN]

The major employers here are the Marshfield Clinic and St. Joseph's Hospital. The hospital and clinic are two separate entities that are conjoined. I moved to wisconsin in 1995 and consider the state my home now. I have worked in the hospital since 1997 and love it.

http://ci.marshfield.wi.us/ for the offical Marshfield website.

Feel free to PM me with any other questions.

tvccrn

[PumpkinButt]

I worked there for some time, but had to leave because it was killing me! I worked 12 hr nights and while I loved it, I couldn't handle all of the meetings, seminars, etc... They do not tailor them to nights and I'd work 1900-0730, have to come back for a meeting at 1 and then work again at 1900, all while living an hour away. When I'd try to reschedule for my day off, they'd say the class was full. I couldn't do it anymore with the drive, little ones at home, etc...

If you lived in the area, by all means, the place is amazing. The things they do there and the patients you will see are phenomenal. You will get tons of experience with some pretty rare people and the fact that it's huge on trauma, you'll see some pretty messed up things. Like I said, I loved it, but nights didn't love me (and switching to days wasn't an option for me).

Good luck with whatever you decide and if you have any ??, pm me. :)

[PMFB-RN, RN]

What is the major industry? What are the schools like? Housing Market - cost of living? What are the hospitals in the area? Any insight would be helpful. I'm going up there in a couple of weeks.

I live near Marshfiels and work at St. Joseph's. Schools are exelent, Houses are very cheap. Much cheaper than the southern part of Wisconsin I moved here from. Rent seems to be about the same. We pay $500 for a large 4 bedroom, 2 bath home in the country. There is only one hospital, St. Joseph's. It's a medium sized hospital (508 beds) and attached to the Marshfield Clinic. St. Jo's is a nice place to work. A few years behind "state of the art".

I would highly recomend 8 North Oncology unit if you are looking for a job. Very well managed unit with friendly, helpful nurses who welcome new comers. Be warned that St. Jo's is VERY low paying. Not even close to the southern part of the state. Starting pay for new grad RNs is $20.25 and they don't really have differentials. This is compaired to $27.70 for new grad RNs in Madison and $4 NOC and $2 weekend differentials. Their health insurance isn't very good and VERY expensive compaired to just about anywhere else. We pay $112/2 weeks for the "standard" plan for a family of 4. Their tution assistance is very low and they do not have a student loan repayment program like other hospitals of their size in Wisconsin.

[tvccrn, ASN, RN]

I also work at St. Joe's and am baffled by some comments by the previous poster.

Not state of the art? How many other hospitals in Wisconsin have the intra-op MRI, the PET scanner onsite, the GAMMA knife? We are in the process of installing a 128 slice cardiac CT scanner. Our Children's Hospital is the only one in the area between Minneapolis and Madison and our NICU has been in operation close to 30 years. We have 26 weekers that go home with few to no residual neurological problems.

I know that our shift diffs aren't the best, but you have to look at the area you live in. You might get paid more in Madison, but the cost of living there is higher than here in central Wisconsin. You, yourself mentioned that housing is less expensive.

I have worked in other states and have found that our insurance is comparable or better than there. For the record those other states would be Texas and Massachusetts. I pay less here than I have anywhere else. There are more choices for coverage than the standard single or family which is great for single parents. The one complaint I have about the insurance is the lack of choices.

Yes, at first glance Marshfield might not seem to be on standards with other areas, but when you really dig down, I think it's a great place to live and work.

If you are looking for higher wages, more stress, and a wild and crazy night life Madison would be your best best. But, if you are looking for a good place to live and raise a family, you can't beat central Wisconsin.

tvccrn

[Otessa, BSN, RN]

We are looking at moving to hometown of hubby) in the next 2-3 years.

I am looking at going back for my MSN.

What kind of opportunites are out there for Advance Practice Nursing.

[frez]

The hospitals that are around chippewa are St. Joes in chippewa (on county hwy I) it is a small rural type hospital than there is Sacred Heart hospital (on clairmont ave) not sure how many beds but 9 floors in Eau Claire and also in Eau Claire there is Luther hospital (on whipple st) which is affiliated with Mayo in rochester dont know if this helps at all. They all have websites google them and check them out

Frez

[jlhhappy]

Saint Joseph's Hospital is in Marshfield. It is indeed affiliated with the Marshfield Clinic. SJH is largest rural hospital in the nation and is the regions Level II trauma center. There is not too much to be said for Marshfield itself as a town but you are an hour to two away from anything you might need for excitement, based on it's location. It is a safe, quiet mid-western town- the kind may like to raise children in. If you are a single person- probably not too much to do.

[tralalaRN]

tvccrn said (re: St. Joe's Hospital) "our NICU has been in operation close to 30 years. We have 26 weekers that go home with few to no residual neurological problems."

You mean "some" 26 weekers - I've seen St. Joe's NICU turn out some really horrendously messed up kiddos . .

[PMFB-RN, RN]

We are looking at moving to hometown of hubby) in the next 2-3 years.

I am looking at going back for my MSN.

What kind of opportunites are out there for Advance Practice Nursing.

*** With St. Joseph's Hospital there are no advanced practice nurse opportunities. In fact last year the hospital fired all of it's clinical nurse specialists.

There are opportunities with the Marshfield Clinic. Search on their web site to see what is currently available.

[Bales]

They weren't fired.