ChristaMedeiros

Thanks for the info! Your comment about the ugly sagebrush made me laugh...my husband LOVES that look lol, while I think it is hideous! I have been to wyoming, but briefly, in the summer, to Jackson and yellowtone. My husband has been several times on hunting trips and loves it. We would actually be interesting in buying a large amount of land for a ranch, not renting in town (I guess that was misleading, I just used cost of rent here as an example of living price). That is interesting about the insurance...the hospital I work at is based in Michigan (is a part of an organization called Trinity Health, but I havent run into any problems so far with the insurance company, also based in Michigan. May I ask what the average pay per hour is over there? And just curious, on average, how many patients do you usually have on a med/surg floor?

this is going a little off topic, but one of the things that struck me is the nurses on their cell phones or messing around on the internet. SERIOUSLY?? I work on a med/surg floor, and there is absolutely no time for that. I am constantly in my patient's rooms, or right outside of them charting. I literally just walk back and forth between my rooms for the entire 12 hrs, checking in on my patients, and providing the necessary care/treatments/meds, etc. If you have time to be on your phone messing around, then you should be in a patients room, doing the little "extra" things, like providing them with education, or just having a regular conversation with them to make them feel like you care about them as a person and are interested in them, checking to see if they need something like a warm blanket, etc...or you could be researching things you feel like you need to brush up on in order to provide better/more knowledgable care. You are at WORK, this is not your time for social media. Patients are on the call light a whole lot less when you are in their rooms often and they have the confidence that you will be back "soon."

Hi Everyone- I am a nurse in Fresno, CA, and my husband and I are entertaining the idea of moving to Wyoming in a few years (I'm starting my research now). I am a new nurse, but LOVING it, and working at a wonderful hospital. We hate CA, mainly due to all the regulations and politics and immigration issues, and as it just gets worse and worse, would like to move to a more conservative state. Anyways, my main concern is a huge paycut...I hear that nurses in other states dont make near as much as CA nurses. I realize that the pay can all be relative to cost of living in the state, so am wondering how it all works out in Wyoming. Here, I make a little over $30/hr for the first 8 hrs of the shift, then for the last 4, get overtime at about $45/hr. To give an idea of cost of living in my area, gas right now is fluctuating around $4/gallon (and hasnt been under $3.25/gallon in years, sales tax is about 9%, average rent for a decent house (2-3 bedrooms) is probably $1000-1300/month, also, since its CA, pretty much everything you can think of has some kind of tax or regulation or premit needed. Also, was wondering if you have pt/nurse ratio over there (med/surg floor) and work 12 hr shifts. Here we have a 5-1 ratio, occasionally 6-1 on med/surg floor. I would really appreciate any advice, thanks!