07rn2b

I work for a CCF regional hospital, NOT at the main campus downtown. I will never work downtown for a number of reasons. Mostly, I don't care for the environment. It's too busy and too big for me. There are parking issues, etc, that I don't want to have to deal with. Most of all, I live near to the hospital where I work, and enjoy my 15 minute commute. I love the size of the hospital where I am, and I enjoy the community feeling there. The staff is friendly, and it is a good environment as far as that is concerned. I know a couple of nurses who work downtown and love it, and I know some who used to work down there and hated it. It all depends on what you are looking for and what you are willing to put up with. I look at the whole CCF/UH issue like this. I know people who have left to go to work for UH, and I know people who have left UH to work for CCF. On the whole, it seems as though it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. If you want to work at a hospital in Cleveland, with a very few exceptions, you are pretty much relegated to working at one facility or the other. For now, I'm ok with where I'm at. At this point in time, it's not worth the hassle of a job switch to go to UH.

I did. Once. It was horrible. I physically did not feel well, and know that I did not give the best care that I could have. I wore a mask all day long, and explained to every patient that it was because of me, not them, that I was wearing the mask. I've been ill twice since that episode. I've called off both times. Today is one of them. I think you're better served to stay home and recover properly, than to try to work and work and work instead of allowing your body to do what it needs to do. I have to work this weekend, and would rather take today to rest and be able to go in to work tomorrow feeling better, than to work today and spend the weekend at work feeling crummy. Being sick at work just makes everything else that much more miserable and difficult IMO.

cleveland, ohio here. i have just under a year of experience under my belt. my starting wage is $22.50/hr. there is a $1 shift diff offered for any hours worked between 3 pm and 7 am the next day. nothing extra for weekends, and i am required to work e/o with one free weekend/year. on the plus side, i earn about 8.5 hours of pto each pay, which i think is pretty good. they have recently taken away "premium" pay incentives to come work ot when staffing is short. they have also taken away the bonuses for the prn employees who work above their required hours in any quarter. and, they have also taken away the healthy bonuses that the night shift staff used to earn. consequently, we are consistently short-staffed and no one wants to work extra with "only" earning time and a half for anything over 40 hours/week. oh yeah, and my raise this year will probably be 75 cents/hour. reading this thread is making me reconsider relocation to somewhere else.

Just my opinion... I graduated from ADN in May. For me, finding a job was no problem. I've been feeling the school "itch" and finally decided to go for a BSN. My rationale is that, after 6 months on the job, I still don't really know what kind of nursing I want to do. I feel that While ADN and BSN programs get you into the door of nursing, the MSN is really the career-making degree, because they are much more specialized programs. They are also very costly. Before I invest the time, energy, and cash into a Master's degree, I want to make sure it's really the career path I want to take. So my advice is, unless you are absolutely certain of what you want to do with a MSN, I'd wait and work for a while, get some clinical experience and knowledge, and then go from there.

I'm a Huron grad myself, as of May, '07. I had a job as of the day of graduation, and started 2 weeks after. I feel that Huron more than adequately prepared me to become an RN. Of the 60+ in my graduating class, all but (I believe) 5 students didn't pass NCLEX the first time. Their clinical program has been far superior to other schools in the area, with regards to both, skills instruction and clinical hours/locations. For example, not every school gets to do a true ICU rotation. But Huron always does. Yes, their actual clinical hours have slightly decreased on the floors, but from what I understand, this time is made up for in the skills lab, so it's not just lost time. The program at Southpointe is the same program as at Huron, but they had to add more classroom space. Same instructors, same curriculum. I haven't heard enough about the actual format that they've switched to to be able to comment on that. Based on my experiences, I'd highly recommend the school. Good luck to you!

I'll jump in here for a second, if that's ok. I went to Huron and did my OB clinicals at Hillcrest. My personal experience as a student was that the majority of the nurses on the mom & baby side of the unit were not particularly nice to us and mostly acted as though we were invading their space. But, the unit has changed considerably since I was there almost 2 years ago, and I'm not sure how many of those nurses are still there. I'll give Lavada a huge vote as someone you would want for a preceptor. She is very, very nice, and all about educating whomever she is working with. I worked with her on the L&D side and had a terrific experience with her.

luv2shopp, I think we are in the same boat. I'm on a cardiac floor, and most days I feel like I'm sinking. I walk out of work wondering why I went into nursing and how they could even license me. I struggle with catching the "little things" and the ability to put 2 and 2 together to come up with what's going on with my patient. People tell me that it gets better, but after 6+ months, I'm beginning to wonder, and to doubt myself. Neuro is a really challenging field to be in, and I give you a big :w00t:just for having the courage to start there right out of school. It can't help any that you are rotating from days to nights either. That's a drain in and of itself. Good luck to you!

Patjohn, we probably do work for the same system. Let's face it, where we are, there are really only two choices. I don't believe that one is better than the other. I'm only 36 and have been at this for not even a year. When I started this career, I felt young, but feel older every day that I go to work. EVerything about it wears me down...the staffing issues; the resistance that we get from the techs on our floor; the patients--some, not all; the fighting amongst the nurses in my unit, and the demands placed on us by our employer. I'm tethered to this system for another year due to a loan they gave me for school, but I'm already looking for a way out and into something else.

I'm in NE Ohio and work for a large healthcare system. As a new grad in June, with a diploma and Assoc. degree under my belt, I started at $22.50/hr. As of my last pay stub, I grossed about $28k from June-Dec, and 2 months of that was at a lower pay rate due to not yet being licensed. It is certainly an income that one can live on. Maybe not well, but it sure beats the $11/hour I was making when I processed claims for an insurance company. That being said, I don't believe we are fairly compensated at all. When you take into account the amount of responsibilities that we have--from pt. care to covering LPNs to dealing with docs, passing meds, etc, etc, etc, the scale is tipped far too far to the responsibility side and not far enough to the salary side. Never mind the wear and tear on our bodies, the stress, and the amount of education that we have to get to become RN's. If we could just go to work every day and do the job that we were trained to do minus all the other stuff, it would be fair, or at least in the realm of fair. I do also think that like teachers, police officers, firefighters, and the like, nurses should be classified as public servants and should be entitled to the benefits as such.