Relocating to Southern CA

cobie · Nov 25, 2000

Well, your headed to sunny Ca! I just moved back to Texas after living in Burbank and Simi Valley for 7 years. I am an born Texas girl and moved out there with my husbands job too. I worked in Burbank at St, Joseph's in their ICU for 7 years. I like that hospital and I liked Burbank. We wanted to buy a house and in order to afford it we had to move an hour away so we ended up in Simi Valley. It was about an hour drive to and from work--but car pool I did. California will be what you make it. It was a hard adjustment for me-no family and people are not friendly at first. It was a good year before I really felt at home, but don't give up. Go to UCLA, they are a great hospital and have good up to date-equipment. The nurses are union and they had great perks. I worked there part time and made great money. Good luck and feel free to contact me should you need Ca advice. I don't know much about Huntington Beach but I wich you the best of job hunting!

MissCheevusRN · Dec 1, 2000

Well Welcome to SO CAL (soon)

I am a native Californian and I also lived in Huntington Beach from 1978-1983. My favorite hospital in the area is Hoag (they also have a web site). I have a friend who I believe is still a nurse mgr there. Also I worked at Fountain Valley Hospital It was an awesome Trauma center when I did my internship there as an EMT in 1982 now,...it sucks. I worked there in 1998 and I realized it had become your typical For-PROFIT-hospital it is owned by Tenet. Huntington Intercommunity, I'm not sure if it has that name still, it was bought and sold several times.

A good resource for nursing jobs in Ca is Nurses Week. It's a free publication that I get at home. I know they also have a web site. They ALWAYS have a ton of jobs.

You're coming into a great market. I think every facility is offering sign-on bonuses some as high as 6K. There are also alot offering moving allowances. You may be able to get a plane trip out to interview too.

On a personal note you are not moving to a great place. It is congested. There are alot of transplants (no offense). California has become a glut of antisocial people. The beach areas have alot of crime, drugs and your basic thugs. Beware of the beach on Holidays. You may want to check out some of the riots Huntington Beach has had in the past. It was horrible, basically I lot of teenage punks causing trouble for the police.

I don't want to rain on your parade too much just be aware. There are some nice areas with family housing, but they're very pricey.

Good Luck

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Eat, Sleep, Save Lives

p.rabbit · Dec 1, 2000

Welcome to California!,

I have lived in the Sacramento area for about 13 years, but previously worked in the L.A, area before that. Your best bet is to come out and sign up with a couple of Nursing Agencies and work around for about 6 months, and then you will discover on your own opinion who is best. Los Angeles has a plethora of Hospitals. I was employed at St. Josephs Medical Center in Burbank which is a great place. Working agency I worked most of the Valley hospitals as well as the hospitals around downtown LA like, Good Samaritan, Century City, Inglewood, Queen of Angels, Cedars of Sinai, St. Johns, UCLA, and LA County USC. But this was a few years ago.

Agency Nursing will pay you a lot while you get to shop around for the best place.

Good luck,

p.rabbit