Teaching hospital or non-teaching hospital?

[extreme]

I would like to get your opinion as to what are the advantages and disadvantages of working in a teaching hospital and a non-teaching hospital. If you were to choose, would you prefer to work in a teaching hospital? Or non-teaching hospital? If yes, why? And based on your experience, which hospital(teacning or non-teaching) would be ideal for nurses to work?

[RNperdiem, RN]

Teaching hospitals!

I remember the first time a resident fetched his own supplies for a bedside procedure, did not require me to wait on him, and cleaned up afterwards. I was amazed. That never happened with private practice docs at the nonteaching hospitals.

[extreme]

It seems that everyone considers the teaching hospital as a more favorable workplace than a non-teaching hospital.

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GrnHonu99, RN]

teaching hospitals are generally the level 1 traumas as well and that is exactly where I want to be!

[S.T.A.C.E.Y, LPN]

I was actually just reading a similar thread/topic on another website. For getting the best ER/ICU experience for going into Flight Nursing, the poster felt that teaching hospitals are not the best place to learn. Actually, I'll just post a portion of his comments--the whole thread can be found here.

"You will find that the worst ER to work in is a teaching ER. Residents, interns etc will be involved and doing all the difficult cases and you will be a 'charter'. Both the ICU and ER in hospitals without residents or interns will provide you with a much better learning experience. Why? Well it has to do with resource allocation. In many teaching facilities RNs have little autonomy as there is always a resident to call and it is encouraged so they can learn. In a hospital without residents, RNs take on a much more autonomous role by necessity in both the ER and ICU."

I'm still a nursing student, so I have no personal experience to compare the two, but I thought this poster brought up a good point. I'd be interested to hear from ER/ICU nurses about how they feel about this.

[extreme]

Thanks a lot for posting to this thread!