King's Daughters Medical Center in Ashland

[UnicornRN]

Anyone work there? I applied for a new grad position and am wondering what kind of pay scale they have and what anyone thinks of the hospital and the area...

[kuhRN]

Hi there. I have previously worked for KDMC. The pay scale for the area is pretty good. As a new grad RN you will probably make around 22.50 or 23.00/hour. If you have a BSN you will make $1.oo more an hour. Ashland is a nice place. Very quiet, not much to do other than movies, mall, or going out to eat. However, it has a very central location. 1.5 hours to Lexington, 2.5 hours to Columbus or Cincinnati and about half hour to Huntington. With that said I would never recommend KDMC to anyone. They treat their employees like crap. Since their lay offs last year all the units are understaffed which means the nurses are over worked. It isn't uncommon for floor nurses to have more than 6 patients at a time. In ICU there is supposed to be a 2:1 ratio but recently those nurses have been caring for 3 patients (which is ridiculous when you consider these are super critical patients). KD is amazing top-heavy. They have a director for every position under the sun. I know of one director that literally had 2 employees under her. They promote people who stay there a long time not those who are more qualified which leads to nurse managers who are in no way qualified or educated for the position. While there are a lot of great people that work at KDMC the organization is awful. I loved my co-workers and hated to leave but I couldn't continue to work for an organization that not only didn't appreciate me but also allowed nurses and patients to be put in unsafe working conditions. KD focuses on upper management and keeping those people happy (they also raises and bonuses when no one else does). As a nurse you will be seen as completely expendable. Good luck!

[UnicornRN]

Thank you!

[pat8585]

wow, and KDMC is always bragged up as one of the top 100 hospitals in america!

[karrie8o3, MSN, RN]

I was wondering if anyone knows whether or not there is a minimum contract agreement on how long you would have to stay in the program as a new grad?

[CrufflerJJ, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

I do not believe that there is any sort of commitment associated with the New Grad Residency program at KDMC. Once you finish that program, should you decide to go into the ED or Critical Care Fellowship (another 4 months), then there would be a 2 year contract which starts once you complete the Fellowship.

[Dray11]

I worked at KDMC for 4 months as a new grad. I left because of things my "experienced" coworkers were doing. And that my manager did nothing to fix it. My nurse educator's answer was "let's see if anything changes...". Not cool. Telemetry was a joke - most of the staff on that unit would blatantly ignore the telemetry monitor - silencing critical alarms and nobody checking patients or anything. Carrying six patients with no assistant is not cool. Especially when you have totals and feeders.

KDMC was understaffed when I worked there and I would imagine its worse since this round of layoffs. There is talk here in Ashland of another round of layoffs. One day at work in January and I am not kidding - a coworker who'd started on our unit in August and myself (October) were the "experienced nurses" on our unit. With four others in their first week off orientation and we had a float charge nurse who had no experience in our specialty. That day sucked completely and totally.

I took a job elsewhere in the region as a floor nurse and the difference is huge. I'm leaving that position for an OR internship closer to my family but while stressful its so much better than life at KDMC.

[mitral]

Thank you so much for your honest Answers. VERY helpful in narrowing down where I want to apply to!

[NurseCard, ADN]

Wow, for some reason I always thought that KDMC was a good place to work.

Not that I planned to apply there anytime soon. My husband is from Louisa and

is always trying to talk me into moving to the area... not anytime soon!!

I do actually like that area a lot, but there just isn't enough to do, and way

too far IMO to drive to Cincy, Lex or Louisville. I don't care much for

Huntington.