Has anyone worked at these hospitals in IL?

rph3664 · Aug 19, 2008

I used to live in the Quad Cities and still reside in Illinois, and while I don't know what the nursing situation is at Galesburg Cottage, I never heard anything good about the pharmacy department or the hospital itself.

JMHO.

That was a few years ago and things may have changed.

gospel Rn, BSN · Aug 19, 2008

I used to live in the Quad Cities and still reside in Illinois, and while I don't know what the nursing situation is at Galesburg Cottage, I never heard anything good about the pharmacy department or the hospital itself.
JMHO.
That was a few years ago and things may have changed.

Hey thanks for sharing!

ViolettaCCU, MSN · Aug 19, 2008

hi! northern illinois here...

vista medical center is located in my neck of the woods. 14 years ago i gave birth to my son there (it was called victory hospital then) and it was a wonderful experience. however, over the past 5-6 years, vista health took over the hospital (now called vista east), a neighboring hospital closed and only to re-open a year or two later under vista health (vista west).

however, over the past year there has been much bad press about vista...

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/news/1096081,5_1_wa07_vista_s1.article

this article tells about one of the many complaints about vista, how it came to our area and other concerns going on.

i'll be starting my clinicals at vista east in a couple of weeks. a few friends of mine, who are 2 semesters ahead of me and have been doing their clinicals there, state that vista is always busy, the nurses are always overloaded and are grateful for the nursing student's help. their experience at vista is very rewarding. my friends had to apply to the vista extern program to continue clinicals and line up a job post graduation. in the meantime, over the summer, both got jobs at another hospital in their student nurse program for the same thing.

i also had a few friends who worked there, as well. all 3 quit over a course of 6 months because of the working conditions (they had been employed there from 1-8 years). again, i won't know myself until i start my clinicals there.

hope this helps!

Trauma Columnist · Aug 20, 2008

I too am from the Quad Cities but live near Peoria now. Cottage has an okay rep. The emergency medicine practice that I work part time for, runs the ER there and they are all board-certified EM MDs.

gospel Rn, BSN · Aug 21, 2008

Thanks everyone for your input. Very helpful:up:

Joybelle517 · Aug 23, 2008

Do NOT consider working at Heartland. It's located in Marion, IL, but it's not got a good reputation here. They are a for profit hospital, and this means the patient to staff ratio is 1:10-12. No way would I work under those conditions.

EmergencyMedicine · Sep 20, 2008

NONONO stay away from Vista, i've taken patients in ambulance transport who lived across the street from Vista all the way to ENH Highland Park Hospital because of its known reputation

ViolettaCCU, MSN · Sep 21, 2008

i'm 3 weeks into my rotation at vista east. so far so good - the hospital is completely computerized for charting and even though the buildings are old, the floors i've been on have been renovated (2nd - l/d, 3rd - med/surg and 5th - postpartum). the nurses stations are very spacious and they use the pixis system for meds. on the other hand, the typical patient to nurse ratio is 8-12 patients per nurse. yikes ! the poor pcts usually have 10-15 !