burntrn08

I work at UMC, and I LOVE it. I went to nursing school here in Vegas and did my rotations at many of the hospitals here, I liked UMC the best. I am a new grad and it has been great. I love that UMC is a teaching hospital, there is always someone willing to teach you about something. I am in the Burn Care Unit now, and all the nurses have been super nice and helpful, and they all love UMC. I have yet to meet someone who does not like working here. We are also in the process of going Magnet, so that's pretty cool. If you are into Trauma, UMC is definitely the place you want to be. They get EVERYTHING!

I'm in orientation right now for UMC and there are about 6-7 nurses in my orientation group who just left North Vista because they said it was a horrible place for nurses. They were all on either med surg or NICU. They said the management isn't very good and the ratios are really, really bad. I'm a new grad, but I've never done anything at North Vista, so I don't have any first hand experiences there. I was just surprised that out of the 14 RNs in my orientation group, half of them were from North Vista, and UMC does orientation every 2 weeks, so it's pretty frequent.

I also heard that Centennial Hills was not 100% open. I also heard that they were only hiring nurses who were already working in the Valley System (Valley, Spring Valley, Summerlin, etc). That came from a nurse manager at Valley.....

Yes, for new grads they ask for a 2 year commitment to the hospital, but not necessarily to the unit. That is weird about your bad call back experience. It is my understanding that the nurse managers are the ones who call you to schedule the interviews, that's what HR told me and that's what happened with my interview process, which was also a panel interview. I would call and talk to the Nurse Recruiter, who is nice and speaks English. The office office is in the HR building across the street from UMC.

I just got hired into the Burn ICU at UMC as a new grad, I don't start for a little while, but I know they are hiring.

I took A&P 2 and micro at the same time at UNLV, but I did it during the summer, so it was 5 weeks to complete the two classes. It was definitely a rough 5 weeks, but it can be done.

Thank you for your reply, lots of good information :) I grew up in Salt Lake right by those Santa Fe apartments, well, more by Big Cottonwood. I went to Brighton High.... Its been a while since Ive lived there and don't know a lot about the hospital systems and info like that up there. I'm kind of out of the loop now:( But I am hoping to move up there when I graduate. I did mean MSN though, I am in the process of getting my master's right now. How much of a difference do you think that will make? Do you like the agency route better? Ive heard that the U is a great place to be for a new grad, but I forget about that comute sometimes from the upper east side. Especially in the snow, I probably don't even know how to drive in it since I've been in sunny Las Vegas!

Hi! I'm in a direct entry program in Las Vegas, I absolutely love it! It is so much work, but its worth it. I really suggest meeting as much of the faculty as you can, they can make or break your experience. I really lucked out and got some absolutely amazing profs that I absolutely love. But I have heard horror stories from friends in other nursing programs about profs from hell, they absolutely hate their program and can't wait to be done and get out. I definitely think that having great profs is key.....

I was wondering what the pay rate and job market is like in UT for new grad RN's with an MSN. I know that most hospitals are IHC hospitals up there, are they a good company to work for? Or is somewhere like the U more desirable?

How do you go about finding a good travel nurse agency? Are there ones that are better for certain states than others? Are travel nurses the same way agency nurses are treated in the hospitals by the other nurses on the floor? Also, I don't understand why travel nurses get paid more than nurses who work for the hospital?