Chesapeake Area Hospitals

goingCOASTAL · Jul 31, 2008

Forgot to mention ... email replies are welcome as well (check profile)

llg, PhD, RN · Jul 31, 2008

What specialty? What type of environment are you looking for? There are several hospitals within a reasonable commuting distance. I've heard that Chesapeake General is a nice hospital. You should probably start there -- but be willing to look around in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Suffolk, etc. if you are satisfied.

goingCOASTAL · Jul 31, 2008

My experience has mostly been Telemetry/Med-surg -- staff and charge experience. Living in the greater Houston area most of my career, I'm not adverse to commuting. Thanks for your reply :)

iToniai · Aug 1, 2008

It is a pretty decent place to work though.

Gititgirl7 · Aug 8, 2008

For Telemetry, you may be interested in Sentara Norfolk General Heart Hospital. just made the top 50 list of outstanding Hospitals. Its been open only a few years and its a beautiful facility.

aka_steven · Aug 12, 2008

Sentara Hospital is probably the biggest health care employer in the region. The entire area "Hampton Roads" ... Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Sulfolk. Are all within an easy commute. I live in Chesapeake. It takes me about 20-45 min to get to work in Virginia Beach. Depending on which clinic I'm working in.

Here are a couple sites to check.

Chesapeake Regional Health center (hospital) http://www.chesapeakeregional.com/opportunities/index.html,

Sentara (Multiple hospitals in the area)

http://www.sentara.com/Sentara/Employment/Search/

simplysusan · Aug 15, 2008

Just wanted to say hi there! I'm moving to the Chesapeake area in the next few months too. I currently work on a telemetry/cardiovascular floor, and have since the beginning of my career 19 months ago. My patients are a mix of med/surg & PCU as far as acuity goes. I would love to work toward becoming an ICU cardiac/cardiovascular nurse at some point in the future. That heart hospital sounds really interesting to me, but want to look at all my options, of course. I will be following along this thread with great interest!

For the original poster I thought I would mention the idea of signing on as a traveler to get your feet wet in the area. It might be a good way to work somewhere for 3 months before seeing if its somewhere you want to work on a more permanent basis. Since I really don't know much about the area hospitals I'm just checking into this as an option myself.

llg, PhD, RN · Aug 15, 2008

If you are going to go the "traveler route," be sure to check out the related details of the agency's contract with the hospital first.

Some agency/hospital contracts require the hospital to pay a sizable fee to the agency if they hire the traveler as a regular employee within a certain time period. That makes it more expensive for the hospital to hire you and makes you a less desirable job candidate for them. Hospitals do NOT want to signal the nurses in the community that they are willing to pay that fee for folks who want to "try them out" on a trial basis at expensive traveler rates before committing to a regular position. It would be prohibitively expensive for them if lots of nurses in the community wanted to do that -- so they don't like to set that precedent unless they really "fall in love" with you.

Not that it can't work out for you that way ... but be careful and be sure to know the contractual agreements and financial implications for the hospital up front, before you assume that they won't mind paying the agency that extra fee for hiring you.

simplysusan · Aug 15, 2008

You make a good point, and I had not thought of it in quite that way. From my point of view the process of trying to keep my head above water financially and move to a new area I know nothing about (my husband just got a job there and we are moving to accomodate his job), the travel nursing option seems/seemed to make a lot of sense. I will have to weigh all of this out. I am certainly not trying to "defraud" anyone. Just wanting to have a place for us to live (my husband has been out of work since February) and make an intelligent decision about where to "plant" myself. Its entirely possible I would want to work at several hospitals in the area on several different nursing assignments before finding a place I want to call home.

Are the permanent nurses in the area bitter towards travel nurses? Where I am from we were very good to our travel nurses. We appreciated the fact that, while they may temporarily be making more than we were/are, our jobs were made easier by them being there and helping to share the load, even if it was just for a season. We needed them for a time. I have heard that some areas are not like that though and would appreciate a heads up if that is the case.

llg, PhD, RN · Aug 15, 2008

As far as the relationships between regular staff and travelers .... I think we are about average. It varies from hospital to hospital and unit to unit.