fly-gal

I work for UCSF. We recently had 2 pay raises so I think we are on par with everyone else finally! I believe the pay rates are posted online, though not sure if it's the updated version. http://www.ucsfhealth.org. UCSF is a very challenging place to work - very high acuity but you will definitely learn lots and see things you wouldn't see elsewhere. However, I'm thinking of leaving because I'm just too stressed out and overloaded. Some of my co-workers really dig the excitement more than I do so I guess it's really what you want our of your work place. People who work at UCSF are really awesome and doctors are for the most part team players. Places to live in SF - depends on you and where you end up working. SF has neighborhoods to suit all sorts - from the hippie, to the suit.... Fancy to down-to-earth. Check out http://www.craigslist.org (which was started in SF) to find out apartment listings.. Best of luck!

For UCSF, Just visit http://www.ucsf.edu and click on employment. From there you can look up jobs and then go back to the salary ranges, input the job code and find out exactly what your pay rate is. As a RN with almost one year experience I get $34.45/hr, plus 16% night diff, also small weekend diff (5%?). We are the lowest pay in the the SF area, so the rumor goes. I believe it is true as my friends in Kaiser make $41/hr on the night shift - same experience as me. However, hopefully we are to see a competitive raise soon as CNA is negotiating/planning a strike..

Ruthie, that's cool that you were able to sign up for only 4 months. Guess the agencies try to draw you in for a year but sounds like they are desperate. Of course, the difference could be that you have been a RN for 8+ years. By the time I go I'll be an RN for less than 2 years. Some of the agencies I wrote to wouldn't even consider me unless I had min. of 2 years. The private sector is beginning to sound very interesting. Could you tell me which agency you went with to sign up at St. vincent's. Were you pleased with their service and pay? So you agency actually gave you vacation pay? I am still debating whether to sign up for a full year direct with a hospital. As I'm still relatively new at being an RN, being a traveller might be quite a challenge. A full year would also give me health insurance too. But you are right about such a big committment to a place I've never worked in. I simply can't afford to go there and interview before hand, nor am I sure I can afford not to work for 4-6 weeks as my cash is going towards paying off my credit. I am sure I'm over thinking this. Guess, I should just get the registration and then worry about it. In the meantime, if you have any other insight to the hospitals in Sydney, where to stay, agencies etc. etc, please let me know. YOu can also PM me. Thanks so much for your help!

Hi Ruthie, Where is st. vincent's located? That's great they were voted best by patients - always a good sign. So how does it work that they are both public and private? How does one get hired then - do you have to apply for public or private or are you an employee of both? thanks!

Hi Ruthie, actually you can work for public hospitals with sponsorship but they have to sponsor you directly ie. hire you directly. I e-mailed one of them and they do take RNs who have worked at least one year. Also, Health Staff recruiting is an agency that recruits RNs for NSW public hospitals but in the end you sign directly with the hospital and not the agency. Might be that the agencies told you whatever they did because they want you to sign up with them?? I'd love to hear more from anyone out there about working for public vs. private hospitals especially in NSW or sydney. thanks for your prespective!

Hi Chimera, Thanks for your information - it was very helpful and give me a better idea of what nursing is like over in sydney. :)

Yes, there are plenty. Australia like the US is suffering from a shortage of nurses. I am currently planning my move from San Francisco to Sydney - but there are tons of great cities in Australia who need nurses so you have a lot of choices. The only problem is, as an American nurse, you need to commit a minimum of one year as it's very unlikely that any hospital or agency will go through all the cost and paperwork to sponsor your work visa, if you plan to work for less than that. Since the US has no work exhange programs, we are not eligible for the working holiday visa program which allows people of EU and commonwealth countries, among others, to work 3 months at a time for up to a year.. another reason for America to not close it's borders so tightly.. but I won't get into that. Let me know if you have other questions - I can help with the whole process of applying for registration as I'm in the midst of it myself but I'll let the locals sell you on their various locales.

Drop Bears? Haven't heard about that. Thanks for the advice on the language. I went to secondary school with some Aussies (in Hong Kong) but I'm sure the slang has changed somewhat since then. I've already had to pick up the Irish slang so I'll just continue to look puzzled and hope people help me out rather than play jokes on me... which has been the case when I moved to the States, when I started hanging out with my husband's friends, and oh joy, now the Australians will have a bit of fun too!

Wow, i can't imagine working without CNA's here - I simply don't have the time to get everything done. I know on our oncology floor though, the RNs do everything but the ratio is 1:3 instead and the patients are pretty self-sufficient most of the time. I don't think we could even do it if we had 1:3 since many of our patients require a lot of help for cleaning etc.. Our CNAs are a vital part of the team and can make or break a RN's (and patient's) day. My husband is a plasterer by trade though he is currently doing carpentry as the need for plastering is quite low here in SF. He is hoping to go back to it but he'll do carpentry if not. We are really excited about our future Australian experience. I have actually visited NSW before (drove up and down the coast) and hope to visit other places this time. My husband has never been so he's extremely excited.

We plan to rent and am prepared to rent a room in a house. Not the most ideal conditions but unfortunately both of us will be making a lot less than we do here but the plus side is we are going for the experience so getting to know people might be easier with roommates. I could go to any city but I have a feeling my husband wants to be near his friends. Thanks though. By the way, what are the shifts like there? I currently do 12 hour shifts though some other hospitals in San Francisco have moved to 8 hours. How many hours do you work a week? We do 36 (work 3 days a week). Holidays are about 10 a year and we get only about 13 days vacation a year.

Thanks Gwenith - i'll check out those links. The reason we are headed to Sydney is because my husband is Irish and he has a couple of friends over there (as do I). I doubt we will go rural as I don't think that is the experience either of us is looking for. In a city, he'll be able to find more trades jobs I think.

Hi, I'm currently a nurse in San Francisco and am planning to move out to Australia for a year with my husband after the New Year. I've been a RN for about a year and work on a telemetry floor with 1:4 ratio. We are required to cannulate, titrate drips, do emergent EKGs, read basic tele., dress wounds, give meds among other things. Our patient acuity definitely has shot up. We try to get our CABG patients out the door in 5-7 days post-op. They often come out of the ICU direct to us in 1-2 days. Just wondering: 1) how does Australia nursing compare. My unit is considered "floor nursing" which is 2 steps away from the ICU (we have ICU, step-down unit, then floor). 2) Any suggestions on good places to work. I don't really mind either way to go back to telemetry (maybe even rehab or clinic work might be a nice change) - just as long as it isn't quite as stressful as my current job. I literally RUN all 12 hours of my shift and am in a constant state of panic not entirely attributed to my recent new grad. status (the experienced RNs also run around trying to get everything done). I am thinking it may be because I work in a State hospital so we do get people who leave it until they are deathly ill to come in. Perhaps private hospitals have lower acuity (and better pay)? I am also mainly looking for good staff. I have been spoilt by the most wonderful co-workers ever. Pretty much everyone is into mentoring, teaching, and teamwork. I never feel that I don't have back-up and I love to hang out with my co-workers. I will probably apply by an agency so any recommendations for those would be great to. Thanks!

My hospital policy in San Francisco is to wipe area clean with alcohol swab, then dry with sterile gauze for insulin injections and blood sugar checks. This is because of nosocomial infections (a co-worker of mine just discovered she has MSRA on her skin after her poison oak lesions got infected... she most likely got the MSRA from work). When the patients go home, we instruct them to wash well with soap and water. With venipucture, we'd most definitely wipe very well with alcohol swabs. The rubbing action is apparently what actually gets rid of most of the nasty bugs, not the actual alcohol. Anyway, that IV line is going to be sitting in someone's vein for at least 3 days (we must change ours every 3 days), so you can imagine if someone's skin appeared to be clean, but really wasn't (I've wiped grime of dark-skinned patients who appeared clean). We had a true in-house story about a patient who fell and got a scratch on their elbow (luckily the RN reported it to the MD and wrote this down). Turns out, the MD did nothing about it and ended up getting sued after the patient died from sepsis... Extremely unlikely to happen, but can. Now, that is probably the other reason we swab - to add another piece of clarity in case anyone sues! Of course, the other reason we do so is from evidence based practice... which obviously has produced different results from our UK counterparts. In general, I think we are pretty anal about preventing nosocomial infections in the US. We wash incessantly or use alcohol based cleaning solution - everytime we go in and out of a room, everytime we touch a patient, everytime... all due to evidence based practice. Actually, recently it's been found that the alcohol based cleaning solution is much more effective than just soap and water but one must rub very well as it is the rubbing that actually gets rid of most of the germs... I'm interested to find out what the policy is in the UK as I had a patient from the UK not long ago who said he was amazed how often we cleaned our hands compared to UK nurses. Of course, I have no way of knowing if that is the reality (that perhaps our studies have returned different results), or if the nurses were not following policy.

Sorry to hear you have been waiting 18 months to get into the US! I really think the US would benefit from relaxing it's borders more and having better work-exchange. That would mean positive influences from foreigners, filling jobs that need to be filled, and would allow Americans to work more easily abroad too - like working holidays etc.. Thanks for your info. on the visa you mentioned. I believe that $520 visa is actually for those who wish to settle/live permanently in the UK. See http://www.smithstonewalters.com/presidence.htm We wouldn't be eligible for that for 4 years but I seriously doubt my husband will want to stay that long in the UK... he'll want to return to Ireland before then I'm sure. Again, the official UK visa site is: http://www.ukvisas.uk.gov. You can put any number of scenarios in to figure out what visas you need under "Do I need a visa?". Good luck to you - I hope you don't have to wait to much longer. Where do you plan to work when you get to the States? I'm out in California and of course, I'll say it's the best state to be in - we're the most easy going, progressive state (though I'm sure people from other states will disagree - they'll say we are too radical)! I've only lived in the US for 13 years because I grew up overseas (in Asia) but I've travelled around the US and California is my favorite! If it's anything to you, the San Francisco Bay Area is where RNs get paid the most in the US. Average is about $60-65K/year. Of course, our cost of living is very high though - probably a little less than central London. If you have any questions at all about working here, let me know :)

Suzanne, I never meant my posting as a rub in anyone's face. 6-12 months is a long time but I do understand other people have to wait a lot longer to get into the US or other countries, so in that respect I may be lucky...(of course, they could make me wait 12+ months too)... But personally I think it's pathetic that we nurses do have to wait so long to be able to work in any country that needs us. 6 months, ok, but 9+ months? Does it really take that long - more like these countries (US, Australia, UK etc. etc) haven't realised the dire need for nurses and have not staffed appropriately or put enough funds in. Besides, foreign nurses need to be welcomed. In my hospital, we love foreign nurses - you can't imagine the joy on a patient's face when they can actually communicate in their language with their nurse and how much better their care is as a result.