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I have worked @ both hosptials. Potomac is a small community hospital so your experience would be limited. If you are looking @ starting slow that might be the place to start. The pay there is pretty good, in some departments you can opt out of benefits and go prn after 1 year of working there, that pay is excellent. The hospital is being remodeled and is beautiful.
If you want a wide variety of experience in virtually any area you choose in nursing Fairfax is the place. They have excellent fellowship programs for new grads. I did there pediatric fellowship about 6 years ago. The hospital is much larger than Potomac. It's a level 1 trauma center, they have a building dedicated to cardiac patients that is fairly new. When I left Fairfax I felt like I had solid basis for my career. The pay I guess is comparible to what the average new grad is making. I think you have to have a few years of experience before getting a PRN rate at Fairfax.
I hope this helped. PM me if you have more specific questions
Oh! Traffic is aweful in this area if you didn't already know, so location may be your deciding factor in the end. The differential at both hospitals are about the same and are pretty good.
Potomac hospital is quiet and only does minor illnesses. They transfer anything that is even slightly critical so if your coming from a children's hospital it may be boring. Fairfax sees pretty much everything. There have been a lot of changes there so I don"t know about the work environment currently but I liked it when I was there. I think Fairfax pays slightly more.
christiangirl
48 Posts
Brand new grad-- wondering about pay ranges for northern VA-- looking at potomac hospital and inova fairfax -- any idea's? What are differentials like?