Surgery182

You're a hero for doing it. They couldn't pay me enough to charge/babysit. Thank you for stepping up and doing it so that others don't have to! It really is a thankless position most of the time.

Anyone have an opinion on what it's like to work for Scott and White or Seton in the Austin area? Planning a move to the area and just curious if one of the hospital systems is better than the other. It appears that both are not for profit hospitals. Also, what is the average pay for a nurse with 5 years experience in the OR? What's the base on call rate? I'm guessing somewhere in the $2-3/hr range. Thanks for any replies.

@RCBR Why would you go to a larger university and pay tens of thousands of dollars to get the same degree that you could have gotten much cheaper at a community college? You can't necessarily argue that you got a better education because the content of nursing school is arguably the same. The NCLEX is a pretty standardized test that everyone must pass. So really the only one to blame about having tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt is yourself. And should you be paid more for having a BSN? I would say no. Someone already mentioned that experience typically trumps classroom education. Go to any nursing manager and ask who their best/hardest working nurses are and I bet the answer will be a mix of BSN and ADN nurses (along with diploma grads). Some ADN nurses may not be able to write an excellent paper on the microbial skin count near an incision on postop day two, but they will run circles around a BSN nurse who got an 'A' on said paper.

Hospitals in Utah will be the absolute last ones in the country to allow a Union to enter. Unions are way too much of a threat to IHC and their low hourly rates.

Yes average is $21 an hour. Typically no you will not get paid more for having a bachelors degree although I believe that IHC prefers it to increase their "magnet status." (That last part may not be correct). $62,000 a year average is probably correct because nurses start out around $45,000 while veterans are probably up to $75,000 so $62,000 is somewhere in the middle. The pay in Utah is awful. If you love the state that much, people will stay and accept it. I moved 100 miles away out of state and made double that as a new grad. It's all about where you want to live. My plan is to work out of state for a few more years and save up enough money that if I want to move my family back to Utah it will offset the ridiculously low wages.

Distal radius case today...Surgeon says, "How does that shaft look?" Well Doc I don't really swing that way but it looks ok to me.

We are suppose to send all explanted hardware to the pathologist for gross ID. The other day she received some screws in a plastic biohazard bag that had punched through. Today the pathologist called. Pathologist: "Please tell your staff to double bag their screws."

The other day a resident was feeling a mass and stated, "I've never felt one so big before!" I quickly replied, "That's what she said!"

Here's my take on the whole thing...First, there is no action on the Utah board. Second, just like others have said, it's a supply demand issue. There are nursing schools churning out students like crazy, most of which will work for $15 an hour if that's what was offered. They have family, friends, etc. and refuse to leave the state. Third, there isn't very much competition among the hospitals. IHC has a stronghold on the state and can pay people whatever they want because there aren't many other choices. People accept the low wages because they don't want to leave Utah. When I finished nursing school, 130 people had applied for 5 openings in a new grad residency program. With that high of a demand, they could pay the new grads peanuts and they would take it. So in my opinion, Utah is a great place to live but you cannot support a family there alone on a nurses wage. I had to move my family out of state where we could afford to live.

If you want to do it, then it is possible. It may require flexibility on your part though. Some OR's may not be willing or have the resources to train a new grad or someone new in general to the OR. You may have to move to a place that has a new grad residency program. But if it's an area you're interested in, it's definitely worth a try.

You have some good points...it seems like the majority of people here want it both ways though. They want to stay where they like living and get paid more (who wouldn't). I don't see an increase in wages ever happening though because most nurses here are complacent with the low wages in return for living in a good city. So until the time comes when nurses here will refuse to work for low wages, they'll be making far less than what they deserve.

The problem with nursing in Utah has two parts. Part 1: there is almost no competition among the hospital systems. IHC is a monopoly and can therefore pay nurses whatever they want, because where else are they going to go; Universtity Hospital who will just basically match what IHC pays. That leads to Part 2: nurses accept the low wages because they refuse to move to another state where they can make more money. If nurses would move to where they get paid what they are worth, IHC would be forced to increase their pay.

I think one of the keys to getting in to the OR, especially as a new grad, is to start working on that before or during nursing school. Start out as a scrub or an aid. 2 years before I started nursing school I was hired in an OR to work as a nurses aid/anesthesia tech. It paid barely above minimum wage and it was hard work but it sure is paying of now. I had job offers to 4 different OR's before I graduated. In my class we had a bunch of returning mom's who came back to school to get their nursing degree and got to stay home all night and study. I was working my rear end off in the OR, learning valuable information and skills that you can't get from a textbook or lecture during nursing school. So come graduation, the older mom's may have had better grades but the economy sucks and there were no jobs available for them. Instead of working and gaining experience through nursing school, they focused on getting A's. When you graduate, A's don't pay the bills. So if you really want to work in the OR you need to plan ahead and get your foot in the door any way you can.