Denver Hospitals

I am at an HCA facility and love it. There is a real sense of family among the nurses, the NM is awesome. If you are a new grad, the preceptors all seem to want you to succeed. I have never run across the NETY culture here. We (at least on my unit) work as a team. I have never heard a nurse say "I won't help with that, I have patients of my own".

Nothing but good things to say about the work environment.

Even with all of that said, retention is not great because the pay sucks. HCA is the lowest paying hospital system in the metro area. Benefits are good, but pay sucks. It used to be that on a 12 hour shift, there was a differential after 1700. They took that away. Weekend differential is only $1 an hour. They really are going to need to step it up because they are losing tons of good nurses to Denver Health and Centura.

UCH is a great hospital and hard to get into at times. I interviewed with the big 3 trauma centers and there was certainly a different culture in all of the ERs. What unit do you work on because that will change things.

Scaredsilly, do you mind me asking which HCA hospital you work for and which unit?

I graduate in August from an accelerated program, so I'm not currently working as an RN on any unit. I do work as a CNA on an oncology unit... not particularly interested in sticking with oncology however.

Thanks for your responses! I really appreciate your insights!

In an effort to retain anonymity, I PMd you my response, please don't share.

Contacts matter! Ask your preceptors if they will give you a reference, or if they would go so far as to speak to the NM if there is an opening on the unit when you are ready to apply. I did that, my preceptor basically got me the job.

Use the online tools at the various hospital groups to find jobs that don't say 1 year experience required, then bypass the online application and HR and walk your resume into a nurse manager of a hiring unit. Almost every single one of the new grads I went to school with you found work in the metro area did it that way. I know your school is telling you not to do it, do it anyway! It works....but probably not until you have your license.

Keep in touch with nurses you work with during practicum, if they like you, they may let you know when an opening is getting ready to occur.

As a side note to any Colorado nurses who want PDN work, MG Health Care called me out of the blue today (I have no idea how they got my number) and said that they have all shifts open and will hire new grads. I think it's all peds, probably a lot of vent patients. They will hire PT, FT, and PDN.

UCH is a great hospital and hard to get into at times. I interviewed with the big 3 trauma centers and there was certainly a different culture in all of the ERs. What unit do you work on because that will change things.

Yes, I agree UCH is a great hospital!

Other than Denver Health, which are the other two that are known as being big on trauma? (I work OB, so that's a foreign land to me). I'm guessing Swedish is one?

Yes, I agree UCH is a great hospital!

Other than Denver Health, which are the other two that are known as being big on trauma? (I work OB, so that's a foreign land to me). I'm guessing Swedish is one?

DG, Swedish and St Anthony are the level 1s. Each dealing with their own unique breeds of trauma. It was very interesting to see all of them and the differences in them all.